Google Apps touted to offer up to 85 percent in energy savings
Cloud computing is often touted for its cost savings when it comes to upgrading and scaling hardware and virtual infrastructures, but Google is reminding enterprise customers about energy savings as well.
Specifically, the Mountain View, Calif.-based corporation boasts that Google Apps can save "a typical organization" anywhere between 65 and 85 percent by migrating to the cloud-based platform of productivity applications.
Google asserts that these findings are consistent with a case study about the U.S. General Services Administration. For example, as a Google Apps client with approximately 17,000 users, GSA reduced server energy consumption by nearly 90 percent and carbon emissions by 85 percent. That totaled to an approximate $285,000 (a 93 percent reduction) in energy cost savings annually.
The Internet giant attributes these savings to two major factors: reduced energy use and lower carbon emissions. Taking a look at the diagram below, Google Apps (and cloud-based solutions from other providers) cut back on energy use for servers and server cooling.
Google explains further in its report that smaller companies typically see higher savings rates, and especially companies that already heavily use applications that are similar to what Google Apps provides (i.e. email, spreadsheets, word processing, etc.).
Finally, Google also took the opportunity to plug Chromebooks as an additional energy savings method because they are essentially cloud-based laptops that are "faster, lighter and less power-hungry," and they "could replace laptops for many users -- leading to additional energy savings of 10–45 percent for employee computers."
Image via the Google Enterprise blog
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