As the battle against COVID-19 pandemic intensified and the global economy contracted by 4.4%, there was one field that saw an exponential growth : Digitalization. With WHO urging people to avoid crowded spaces and increase physical distancing, telecommunication evolved to become the ultimate surviving mechanism. With companies opting to virtual meetings and forums, physical classrooms becoming google classrooms, families embracing each other via zoom and google meet and shopping stores becoming e-stores, our telepresence has magnified tremendously.
According to a report by UNCTAD, in 2020, the e-commerce's share of global retail trade increased to 17%, compared to 14% in 2019, with retail websites yielding almost 22 billion visits in June 2020, compared to 16.07 billion global visits in January 2020.
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| Number of Visits to Retail Websites Worldwide |
Identical with our physical world, the digital world requires fuel to sustain, and the fuel in the virtual world is DATA.
CLOUD FARM
When dealing with data storage, we often choose to store the data in the "cloud", as it allows us to access the data from any device at any hour of the day.
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| Source: How It Works Daily |
Contrary to the name, cloud storage is not as cool as many expect - stored in artificial clouds floating away in the horizon. Disappointingly, the cloud are basically data centers (concrete structures) that are scattered on the plains all over the world.
In a span of 7 years, the total number of data centers, also known as server farms, have skyrocketed to a staggering 8 million farms today, compared to 500,000 in 2012. With investments in these data treasure chests are expected to grow with a compound annual growth rate of 9.9%, by 2025, it is estimated $432.14 billion will be invested in data centers alone.
In the data ecosystem, companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook at considered the data kings as they collectively store an estimate of 1,200 petabytes data stored in their farms.
Naturally, as these servers run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, they requires enormous amount of energy, with 40% of all energy used to power the internet are used to keep the servers from overheating. According the recent data, it is estimated that these "data factories" use an estimate of 200 terawatt hours energy annually, which equates to 1% of global electricity usage accounting to 0.3% of global carbon emission contributors. When seen on a macro level, the information and communication technology (ICT) ecosystem as a whole accounts for more than 2% of global emissions - which is parallel to the aviation industry's emission from fuel. (pre-pandemic). In a study conducted by Anders Andrae, he predicted that in the worst case scenario, data centers energy consumption will increase by 15 folds by 2030, blowing up their carbon footprint.
Source: MDPI
THE CLOUDY "GOING GREEN" OF CLOUD
Without emitting poisonous fumes and toxic radiations, data centers have become a "green factory" contributing negatively to the global carbon footprint.
This is a clear-cut blow in the face for organizations and companies who have decided to opt to "digitalization" as a substitute to paper as their contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 12 : "Responsible Consumption and Production". More than 80% surveyed businesses opt to a paperless workflow without realizing, or more accurately, ignorant, to the impact of digitalization. Though they successfully saved thousands of papers from ending up in recycling centers, they unfortunately overlooked the massive storage units in different data factories that are saving their e-documents. The thousands of physical paper are now 100GB of data stored in data center, gobbling up the energy.
THE GREEN CLOUD
Nevertheless, all is not gloom and doom. As the cloud disperses, it is noted that big tech love efficiency. Hence, more and more Data Kings choose renewable energy to power their kingdoms. Google dedicated its operation using the concept of circular economy, and have been carbon neutral since 2007. Relying on its renewable energy credit to offset its fossil fuel usage, they still maintain 100% renewable use while still being connected to grids that rely on fossil fuels for power generation. Ensuing Google, Microsoft became carbon neutral since 2012 and rapidly grown to run on 100% renewable energy since 2014.
Although efforts in greening the data kingdom has been taken up by the respective Kings and Lordships, the ultimate solution will be to quench of thirst for data. Its time to take our lesson from physical world and apply it into our virtual world.
Overpopulation of humans, have caused a massive decline in the ecosystem and the thriving of the natural world. As such, an overpopulation of data, will cause the increase of data centers, which in turn will need more land space and energy to drive it.
Hence, going back to basics, REDUCTION is always the best option.
THE GREEN CLOUD DWELLER
Whatever the service rendered, it is always to meet the expectations of the consumer. As consumers, there a a few steps we can take to ensure our virtual world doesn't overflow our physical world.
1. Deduplication
Data storage can be reduced up to 90% by eliminating duplicate pieces of data stored in various data sets. By performing deduplication, we can be sure to store only one copy of an attachment that is sent to many employees.
2. Compression
Compressing a file in simple words is making the file smaller in size. By reducing the size of a file, they storage space required is also smaller, and the bandwidth needed to transfer such files are also reduced as well as increased transfer efficiency. There are two types of compressions: Lossless and Lossy. Lossless compression reduces the file size without losing any information, while the later reduces the file size by chopping off bits that aren't 100% necessary to function.
3. Minimize Virtual Presence
Simply put, reduce the data stored in the cloud. Be aware of your social media content, your emails and your network usage. Incredibly, the streaming of your favourite videos too! In 2018, Netflix was responsible for 15% of the total downstream internet traffic globally. To avoid lagging and buffering, Content Distribution Network (CDN) copies multiple compressed encoded files into the hundreds of data farms across the globe, forming a wider CDN, which results in smooth streaming of movies and shows in Ultra HD and HD. Therefore, reducing screen time or even decreasing the quality of the video could have an impact on the stored data.
Whole in whole, the digitalization is inevitable. The best option is to embrace it and to learn from our past mistakes - OUR WORLD IS FINITE. Our resources are finite. The virtual world is not isolated from our physical world and it is important that we do not go overboard and let the future generations face the consequences.
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