Clouding the Issue? Facts and Myths About Cloud Computing

Moreover, there has been a shift in the perception of acceptable risk in recent years. On the whole, we now see online banking, investment management and so on as acceptable — or at least risks worth taking — so maybe it’s time for cloud computing.

Cloud is green
Well, it might reduce your power consumption, but those data centers on which the cloud are built have to run on something. In 2010, they accounted for 1.3 percent of the world’s electricity consumption. So to some extent, it’s pushing the problem around. Electric car companies claim their vehicles have low emissions, but those batteries have to be made somewhere don’t they? Though, it is true to say that one big virtual server is more efficient than the equivalent number of physical servers. So to check the green box, you need to choose a data center that consumes renewable resources like those found in Canada and the Nordic countries.