Sustainability in the Cloud With the SEEBURGER BIS Platform Powered by AWS Cloud Services

Environmental sustainability is becoming an increasingly important consideration for businesses today. Companies are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and energy consumption across all areas of their operations. For many, this includes evaluating the sustainability of their IT infrastructure and services, and sustainability in the cloud can significantly contribute to this overall goal.

Migrating business systems, workflows and underlying technologies to the cloud can provide significant sustainability benefits as compared to traditional on-premises IT. The public cloud from providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers businesses the ability to be more sustainable through their IT operations.

Sustainability in the cloud – but how?

The use of cloud computing is on the rise, but how exactly is cloud computing a technology that will drive sustainability and long term success?

The fight against climate change, global warming and pollution are only a few of the main challenges in today’s world for societies, activists, politicians and businesses. The development of certain business models, infrastructures and the use of legacy technology are not sustainable in the long run with the planet’s carbon absorption capacity.

Cloud computing can be a real solution to face and solve these evolving challenges. Not only does cloud technology contribute to a more sustainable IT, but it also paves the way for whole sustainable infrastructures and business models that follow a cloud-first strategy. The following three aspects make cloud a sustainable technology that’s fit for the future.

• Cloud services are energy efficient as most, if not all, providers invest in energy-efficient data centers, using advanced cooling and power management techniques, which then reduces the carbon footprint of data processing compared to traditional on-premises servers. Moreover, cloud providers continuously invest in research and technology to make their data centers even more energy efficient, passing on these benefits to their customers.
• Cloud services can scale resources up or down based on demand, optimizing resource usage and reducing the need for overprovisioning, which can lead to wasteful energy usage. Cloud service users can scale their resources up for the 20 minutes a day that it takes to crunch the numbers and then scale down again for the rest of the day, whereas in a traditional IT environment, you’d need to have all that computing power available to you 24/7. Cloud deployments not only save costs but also valuable resources.
• Cloud-based software can be updated centrally, reducing the need for individual software installations and potentially reducing energy consumption associated with these updates. At the same time, this reduces e-waste production, because cloud users need to maintain fewer physical servers and equipment for updates as well as during everyday use.

Cloud computing can help organizations and individuals reduce their environmental impact by improving energy efficiency and supporting environmentally-friendly data center practices. Next, let’s have a look at a good concrete example of the aspects mentioned above. Sustainability in the cloud can only be at its best when approaching it with experts: AWS and SEEBURGER.

Sustainability in the cloud with public cloud services from AWS

The AWS public cloud is designed for high efficiency and flexibility, which opens up key ways AWS services can help reduce the environmental impact of your IT. AWS’s sustainability work includes enhancing energy efficiency, transitioning to renewable energy, reducing embodied carbon, using water responsibly, driving a circular economy and enabling sustainability for customers.

• The company is on a path to powering their operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, as part of a commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
• In 2022, 90% of the electricity consumed by Amazon was already attributable to renewable energy sources.

Investments in renewable energy help power AWS Cloud data centers around the world. Let’s have a look at this in some more detail.

Sustainability in the cloud with data center efficiency at a global scale

AWS Global Infrastructure regions provide you with data center locations close to the users. This reduces network latency and the need for traffic to travel long distances. Their global footprint allows localization of traffic and services. With a focus on state-of-the-art facilities, AWS continuously upgrades its data centers with the latest energy efficient cooling, power distribution and building management technologies, and maintains close partnerships with leading manufacturers to drive efficiency gains.

Cloud and sustainability with technology energy efficiency

AWS data centers are industry leaders in energy efficiency and are up to five times more energy efficient than typical European data centers. Through innovative and optimized server design, AWS has reduced the energy required for computing by up to 50% in the last five years. These substantial efficiency gains are passed on to you as a cloud customer. For example, AWS has developed specialized servers that reduce power consumption by over 60% compared to typical enterprise servers. Their high-voltage direct current distribution network decreases energy losses, providing 9% higher efficiency than standard AC power.

Sustainability with scalability on demand

The cloud allows you to scale your usage up and down to precisely meet current needs. With AWS, you can easily add or remove capacity to align with changes in your workload and right-size your infrastructure. This eliminates the need for over-provisioning resources, which enables you to reduce power consumption.

Lower hardware requirements in the cloud

By leveraging the shared infrastructure of the AWS Cloud, you can avoid purchasing and maintaining your own data center hardware. This reduces the environmental costs associated with manufacturing, transporting and disposing of servers and equipment. AWS enables multiple customers to share data center capacity. This leads to higher resource utilization compared to typical on-premises environments.

Clean energy leadership push sustainability in the cloud

AWS has pioneered the use of renewable energy in the cloud industry. They are the largest corporate purchasers of renewable power globally. Commitments like The Climate Pledge underscore this leadership, with a commitment to reach 100% renewable energy for all global operations. As an AWS customer, the cloud infrastructure that hosts your workloads will increasingly be powered by clean sources. Major AWS regions in the US, Europe and parts of Asia-Pacific are already running on 100% renewable energies. The immense scale of the AWS Cloud allows for greater optimization, and the massive scale also enables investments in sustainability that smaller operations cannot access, which also drives significant investments in developing new renewable sources.

Why the SEEBURGER BIS Platform on AWS stands for sustainability in the cloud

The SEEBURGER BIS Platform on AWS empowers companies to operate sustainably and efficiently in the cloud.

By having the BIS Platform hosted on AWS rather than local on-premises servers, you gain access to the most efficient large-scale cloud infrastructure available today. This provides sustainability benefits through energy efficiency and hardware reduction. AWS data centers provide the optimal facilities and systems for cloud-based integration. The BIS Platform on AWS is available globally and includes carbon-neutral regions powered by 100% renewable energy. Global AWS connectivity and regions closest to your ecosystem minimize network hops, which reduces energy usage and your carbon footprint while ensuring network performance with minimal network impact.

Running the BIS Platform on AWS offers you access to sustainability-focused innovations from both companies. As SEEBURGER and AWS introduce new capabilities that optimize energy and resources, you can immediately benefit from our efforts. Continual improvement processes at SEEBURGER and AWS ensure integrations become more efficient over time through technical and process advances and future-proof innovation.

By moving to the cloud, your internal resources can focus on core business tasks rather than managing infrastructure. This allows everyone to maximize productivity and business outcomes. Your IT team spends less time on maintenance and benefits from seamless operations in the cloud so that you can concentrate on driving strategic initiatives.

Sustainability in the cloud – conclusion

Sustainability is not just about image — it’s become a strategic priority across industries. IT infrastructure plays a vital role in meeting overall enterprise sustainability objectives. Migrating your integration workloads to the BIS Platform on AWS provides you with an optimized, resilient and future-ready platform that supports your sustainability goals.

With SEEBURGER’s expertise in business integration that empowers any type of user to connect, automate and innovate, combined with the efficiency, scale and green energy leadership of AWS, you can feel confident that your critical integration processes are enabled in a sustainable way for the future. Focus on your core business and let the BIS Platform on AWS handle your integration needs and contribute to your sustainability initiatives.

For more information about Amazon’s Cloud Sustainability Initiatives please visit Amazon’s Sustainability Info page: https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/products-services/the-cloud