Fall in Love with Cloud Again

Rapid digitalization and a growing concern about climate change will increase the demand for energy-efficient data centers by23% over the next five years. Various factors contribute to the optimal environment to deploy a sustainable network of servers at scale. We can observe these factors based on examples of the most efficient data centers in the world.As the demand for green data storage and processing increases, companies without the capability to achieve a low PUE (power usage effectiveness) domestically will be forced to utilize colocation data centers in regions with favorable conditions.Efficiency FactorsIn 2020, only two markets reported a PUE under the global average according toUptime Institute'sannual Global Data Survey – Europe and the United States. Below we will explore the five most significant factors attributing to data center efficiency.ClimateBuilding in a cool climate is the easiest path to energy efficiency. Two ofGoogle'smost efficient data centers are in The Dalles, Oregon, and Dublin, Ireland. Both climates are extremely mild, even in the summer, allowing for cooling without excessive energy usage.Data centers in warmer climates must utilize exponentially more resources to keep servers from overheating and increase airflow just to run at baseline capacitiesGovernment RegulationsEnvironmentally conscious government and corporate regulations also push data centers to be more efficient. For example, in the US, theFederal Energy Management Program(FEMP) helps agencies and organizations construct and maintain sustainable data centers by providing resources and encouraging participation in programs like the Better Buildings Challenge and Data Center Accelerator.Economic StabilityOperating a highly advanced, energy-efficient data center requires allocating natural, human, and technological resources. Countries with undeveloped supply chains and unskilled workforces struggle to develop, build, and maintain efficient facilities.Cost of EnergyIn 2020, Europe's data centers outperformed the United States by 5%. One of the reasons could be the higher cost of energy. Energy consumption regulations in Europe are more strict, incentivizing facilities to utilize other forms of energy.One example is Kao Data, a developer and operator of carrier-neutral data centers for colocation. The UK companyannouncedin 2021 its plans to transition to hydrotreated vegetable oil fuel in all backup generators eliminating 90% of net CO2 and reducing nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide emissions.InnovationThe 2021 Uptime survey found that PUE is flatlining. While more new data centers are achieving PUEs of 1.3 or better, performing at this efficiency level isn't economically viable for older facilities. The only path to reducing PUE is through technological innovations such as direct contact liquid or solid-state cooling.Warmer regions with fewer environmental regulations and unstable supply chains like South America and the Middle East have a challenging road forward to reach the global average. According to the Uptime Institute's latest report, accessible changes like increasing airflow have already been made, leaving only innovation as a solution.Most new and recently developed data centers in Europe and the US are in more favorable climates, subject to efficiency standards, and at the forefront of innovation. Therefore, an efficient data center in a warm environment is possible, but it must have a reliable supply chain and utilize highly innovative technology to reach a low PUE.The Most Energy Efficient Data Centers in the WorldTwo regions are significantly outpacing the global PUE average due to environment, regulations, economic stability, and innovation. Each factor is important but innovative technology prevails as the unifying force driving all the data centers in these regions to reduce emissions.Verne GlobalThe temperate climate, environmentally-conscious population, and history of innovation create the perfect environment for energy-efficient data centers in the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.Verne Global'snetwork of data centers in Iceland sets the global standard across all metrics, not just PUE. The company also advocates against corporate greenwashing or marketing campaigns to help companies seem more sustainable. One of the advantages of hosting servers in Iceland is the country's low Production Carbon Intensity (PCI), the amount of carbon used to generate electricity. Iceland's PCI is only 27 gCO2e/kWh, while other countries in Europe, which are low compared to global figures, are much higher. In comparison, the UK's PCI is 213 gCO2e/kWh, and Germany's is 349 gCO2e/kWh.eBayWhile many of the United States' top-performing data centers are in colder regions, like the Microsoft facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and BenBroadband's data center in Bend, Oregon, outliers rely on renewable resources and technology to achieve sustainable emissions.One of the most impressive examples is the eBay data centers in Phoenix, Arizona, and South Jordan, Utah. TheTopaz facilityin Utah utilizes a massive 72,000 square-foot solar roof, producing over 900,000 kWh of electricity annually.ConclusionBusinesses without access to the resources required to build and maintain energy-efficient data storage and processing should strongly consider colocation to limit net greenhouse gas emissions. At Datacenters.com, we provide clients with access to dozens of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. Sign up for ourservers on-demandprogram or schedule a free demo today.Powered by Froala Editor

The rapid adoption of digital transformation initiatives has put cloud technology in the spotlight and raised questions about what role virtualization plays in cloud computing.Virtualization and cloud computing are closely connected, often working together to provide various compelling services. However, while they're often interdependent, they're not interchangeable. Virtualization technology transforms physical hardware into virtual resources, while cloud computing delivers virtualized resources through the internet and on demand.Critically, understanding the role of virtualization in cloud computing can help you make better decisions about which cloud or virtualization solutions will work best for your company.What Exactly Is Virtualization?Often called the foundation of cloud computing, virtualization refers to the creation of virtual resources, like servers, virtual network switches, and virtual storage devices over computer hardware. It allows hardware elements on a single computer (for example, processors, memory, storage) to be divided into several virtual computers. These virtual computers are often called virtual machines (VMs). Each VM can run its own operating system and behave like an independent computer despite running on just a portion of the foundational computer hardware.What Is Cloud Computing?You likely know how the cloud computing model works. Cloud vendors offer on-demand IT resources over the internet on a pay-as-go basis. This frees companies from buying, owning, and maintaining physical servers and data centers themselves. Instead, they can access computing power, storage, databases, and so on, on an as-needed basis. As a result, cloud computing offers numerous benefits, including cost reduction, increased data security, and rapid development (you can spin up new cloud computing instances in seconds).Some Key Differences Between Virtualization and Cloud ComputingDefinition and purpose: Virtualization is a technology that allows companies to create many simulated environments from a single physical hardware system. Cloud computing is a methodology or set of principles and approaches that enable the delivery of compute, network, and storage infrastructure resources, platforms, applications, and services, to users on-demand.Use: Virtualization delivers packaged resources to specific users for a particular purpose. Cloud computingdelivers variable resources to groups of users for various purposes.Configuration: Virtualization is image-based, while cloud computing is template based.What Are the Different Types of Server Virtualization?Virtual servers play a prominent role in cloud computing and have become a critical component of modern hybrid ecosystems.HypervisorA Hypervisor, also called a VMM (virtual machine monitor), is a layer that exists between the hardware and operating system and acts as a control tool. It controls and supervises the installed virtual servers, identifying traps, responding to privileged CPU instructions, and handling queuing, dispatching, and hardware requests.ParavirtualizationParavirtualization is an enhancement of traditional Hypervisor virtualization. It also uses a Hypervisor layer but allows VMs to have an interface similar to the underlying hardware. It improves the VM's performance by modifying the guest operating system. VMware and Xen are examples of paravirtualization.Full VirtualizationFull virtualization differs from paravirtualization and classical Hypervisor virtualization because it allows multiple guest operating systems to run on a single host OS in full isolation. It completely simulates the underlying hardware so that any software capable of execution on the hardware can be run in the VM. Full virtualization can be helpful in a number of situations, for example, running experimental new code at the same time as older versions while using separate VMs.Beyond server virtualization, other types of virtualization exist, including:Operating system virtualization: This is when the virtual machine of VMM is stalled on the host operating system instead of directly on the hardware system. The primary use of operating system virtualization is in testing applications on different OS platforms.Storage virtualization:This is where physical storage from multiple network storage devices are grouped to look like a single storage device. Typically, storage virtualization is done for backup and recovery purposes.Can You Leverage Virtualization Without Cloud Computing?Yes. Plenty of organizations utilize virtualization without cloud computing. The main advantage of virtualization over non-virtualization is in making better use of the available server capacity - it allows businesses to maximize the servers they already have.However, virtualization without cloud computing is becoming rarer these days. Why? Because it often takes days or even weeks for each VM to go through the internal approval process and be made available to the users. In other words, virtualization without cloud computing often stunts a company's agility, and many companies aren't willing to take this risk in an increasingly competitive business landscape.Can You Have Cloud Computing Without Virtualization?It's often said that cloud computing can't exist without virtualization, and while this is true, it doesn't mean what most people think it means. The cloud computing model or industry can't exist without virtualization - the business model relies heavily on virtualization to deliver on-demand IT resources at scale and affordably. However, you can access non-virtualized IT resources through the cloud.Some providers offer cloud computing without virtualization for the companies that want it. This service falls under Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and isn't very common, but it exists nonetheless. So, why do some customers want cloud computing without virtualization? The primary use case is performance and minimal latency, where any virtualization overhead can't be tolerated. Another reason might be that the company wants to build and manage (have complete control) over their own private cloud but have it hosted by a provider over the internet.Despite being less common, these services are critical for the companies that need them.Cloud Computing With VirtualizationThe most common approach is leveraging cloud computing with virtual machines. It offers all the benefits of virtualization and cloud computing, including:Resources can be commissioned and decommissioned quickly. This means you don't have to buy heaps of spare capacity for the occasional peak period.Typically, you only pay for the resources you use, making the model more cost-effective. CapEx costs are also reduced or eliminated because you don't need to purchase your own servers.Final ThoughtsVirtualization undoubtedly plays a hugely important role in cloud computing and offers numerous benefits. You may decide to embark on a virtualization journey without cloud computing as a way to maximize your IT resources while remaining in complete control over them. This is especially true if you have stringent security requirements that may be difficult to achieve with a public cloud. Equally, you might decide to leverage cloud computing to reduce costs and increase agility, or if you have limited IT staff to manage your IT landscape.Powered by Froala Editor

35% of organizations with a multi-cloud environment state the biggest challenges in managing it include how to ensure compliance, consistent security, and robust access controls, often due to the possibility of fragmented data silos, prohibitive data egress costs, and data gravity. Yet, 93% of organizations consider deploying a multi-cloud strategy to drive their digital transformation initiatives.A multi-cloud environment is beneficial since it facilitates innovation as enterprises leverage the different services from different providers to address business needs. For example, suppose one application requires a high availability cloud while another needs high speed. Then, a company can adopt a multi-cloud approach to meet the specific needs of each application but ensure effective management to avoid the challenges that come with a multi-cloud environment.In this article, we’ll review the strategies and technologies that businesses can utilize to simplify their multicloud environments.Utilizing Artificial IntelligenceA multi-cloud environment has caused organizations to deploy big data to monitor and support IT operations. Thus, leveraging AI-based systems can assist companies in managing their multi-cloud environments. Specifically, AI systems utilize deep learning and machine learning to analyze the vast amounts of data in a multi-cloud environment to gain and act on insights that indicate possible issues. For example, AI-powered systems can automatically identify the outage of specific cloud services and shift workloads and operations to a different cloud environment to ensure operational continuity.In addition, implementing an AI-powered platform helps companies detect and contextualize patterns from data sources across the deployed cloud solutions. Pattern contextualization uncovers issues like repetitive processes and recurring challenges that can be addressed through automation. Besides, AI-enabled platforms learn the dynamic behaviors of cloud services and applications to enable efficient infrastructure and capacity management. By leveraging AI's predictive capabilities, organizational IT teams can align cloud operations with budget targets, detect false alarms, and minimize the time to resolution, thus ensuring a multi-cloud environment operates smoothly.Also, AI helps automates the manual workloads of a multi-cloud environment. Utilizing AI-enabled automation and orchestration helps companies to eliminate the need for assigning resources, which is time-consuming and cumbersome. Managing multi-cloud workloads manually can slow the progress of high-value and critical projects.Thus, using AI to orchestrate and automate IT infrastructure and processes is vital to managing multi-cloud environments. For instance, scaling multi-cloud environments through AI-powered orchestration and automation streamlines the management processes, strengthens data governance and cost, and enhances resilience and backup processes.Lastly, AI can automate performance enhancements across the deployed services in a multi-cloud environment to improve service levels. As a multi-cloud system grows with time, the traditional management tools may introduce gaps since they may not provide full visibility into the end-users experiences and the improvement needed to optimize the experiences when using the multi-cloud services. An AI-based architecture can detect service degradation signs early and automatically shift workloads to high-performing clouds to reduce the adverse impacts on end users.A Single Pane of Glass for Multi-Cloud DeploymentsApplications and workloads deployed in different clouds in a multi-cloud environment are difficult to manage. For example, compliance, operational, or finance applications may not connect, thus introducing governance, control, and visibility problems. As a result, inadequate visibility may cause end users to struggle when choosing the best approach to managing organizational operations in a multi-cloud environment. In this regard, the idea of a single pane of glass for a multi-cloud environment is to unify disconnected data and applications to provide greater visibility, enabling companies to regain control and govern the multi-cloud ecosystem more efficiently.Moreover, gaining full visibility into the multi-cloud services provides a blueprint about the various cloud services to inform how to provision them, integrate them with cloud applications and data easily, security-driven compliance and holistic audit capabilities, and combined metering and usage monitoring for efficient pay-as0-you go models. Thus, a single pane of glass strategy allows companies to consume multiple cloud services while seeing how much it costs to inform budget management decisions.It is also worth noting that a single pane of glass strategy offers a unified approach to ensuring all end-users realize a consistent experience. It enables automated resource provisioning to minimize delays in getting services and apps to end users. Furthermore, a unified multi-cloud management platform provides a multi-tiered administration approach. As a result, IT teams can easily leverage the full visibility into the multi-cloud services to view, manage, and administer various services to end-users.Essentially, it provides different organizational departments with the visibility required to manage a multi-cloud environment under a single umbrella. The visibility also leads to stronger security since it simplifies identifying missing compliance requirements and security controls. In addition, viewing the different data flows from a single dashboard is crucial to protecting it using the appropriate data protection measures.ConclusionMulti-cloud systems are becoming increasingly popular, and this trend shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. As multi-cloud strategies grow more entrenched in all businesses, it is more important than ever to ensure that you can optimize your multi-cloud strategy while protecting and securing your most strategic resource: your data.Our multicloud platform gives you the tools to lower your cloud costs with Zero Ops and AI that automatically manages memory and CPU. Your cloud solution should reduce your IT spending. Let us show you how.Contact Datacenters.com today for a free demo to see how easy a multicloud deployment can be for your organization. Don’t have time for a demo? Spin up servers in a matter of minutes and customize your environment.Powered by Froala Editor

Cloud computing is a business vertical that has done nothing but grow over the last several years. That growth has brought fundamental changes to the global IT infrastructure market. Public cloud, private cloud, and Multicloud deployments continue to increase in popularity. As a result, it’s become increasingly important to be aware of the big players in the industry and each of their strategies.In this article, we’ll highlight the top cloud providers in the market right now according to Datacenters.com and external sources. This will give us an idea of the cloud providers that have been the most impactful thus far in 2022 as well as give us an eye on who’s set to close out the year strong.ZenlayerZenlayer offers on-demand edge cloud services in over 270 PoPs around the world, with expertise in fast-growing emerging markets like India, China, and South America. Businesses utilize Zenlayer’s global edge cloud platform to instantly improve digital experiences for their users with ultra-low latency and worldwide connectivity on demand. Zenlayer offers on-demand bare metal cloud, SD-WAN cloud connect, edge computing and colocation in 100+ data centers on six continents.Control PlaneControl Plane Combines all the Services, Regions, and Computing Power of AWS,GCP, Azure, and Private Clouds in an Easy-To-Use Platform. Easily Combine and Configure Public and Private Clouds and Mix and Match Cloud Services to Build Flexible yet unbreakable infrastructure. Control Plane allows clients the ability to access all of the clouds in one place, giving developers unprecedented power and flexibility.Google CloudGoogle’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products. Whether your business is early in its journey or well on its way to digital transformation, Google Cloud can help solve your toughest challenges.Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. It provides software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.AWSAmazon Web Services (AWS) describes both a technology and a company. The company AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments, on a paid subscription basis with a free-tier option available for 12 months. The technology allows subscribers to have at their disposal a full-fledged virtual cluster of computers, available all the time, through the internet.VultrVultr is a fast-growing independent cloud provider, offering customers global cloud compute, cloud storage, bare metal, GPUs, and Kubernetes through a simple web-based control panel. They offer essential cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) without the complexity and cost of the Big Tech clouds. Vultr provides the cloud infrastructure behind major studio video games, large-scale web hosting providers, popular enterprise SaaS applications, next-generation video streaming applications, and much more.EquinixEquinix, Inc. connects the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees, and partners inside the most interconnected data centers. In 50+ markets across five continents, Equinix is where companies come together to realize new opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies. Make infrastructure your competitive advantage with on-demand, high performance bare metal, directly integrated with Equinix Fabric.PhoenixNapPhoenixNAP is an award-winning global IT services provider, offering cutting-edge technology solutions from strategic locations worldwide that are easy-to-deploy, come at affordable OpEx payment options, quick response times, and a strong up-time. PhoenixNap also offers the ability to spin up servers in under 60 seconds. Spin up dedicated servers at cloud speed with a couple of clicks. No more waiting around for hours for your machine to be provisioned.Speak with an ExpertOnly cloud solutions can offer the agility, flexibility, and efficiency needed to be successful in the digital age. At Datacenters.com, our goal is make your cloud journey an easy one. Our cloud control center utilizes AI to scale and manage multicloud deployments. The AI learns and adapts to the demands on cloud services to automatically reduce runtime costs. Schedule a demo today or spin up servers on demand.Powered by Froala Editor