Bangalore: Accenture has added a new capability Green Cloud Advisor to its myNav platform that helps companies to run more sustainable and efficient clouds.
Green Cloud Advisor helps companies design cloud solutions that reduce carbon emissions. Firstly it assesses the company’s existing data centre energy usage, computing requirements and sustainability goals.
Then using proprietary algorithms, it quantifies the “greenness” of potential cloud solution options, based on inputs such as the cloud service providers’ carbon emissions goals, locations, energy sources and readiness to transition to clean energy.
Accenture research has found that shifting from on-premise data centres to the public cloud can reduce an enterprise’s energy usage by 65% and cut carbon emissions by more than 84%.
Migrating existing private workloads to a public cloud could reduce global CO2 emissions by nearly 60 million tons annually — equivalent to taking 22 million gasoline-powered cars off the road.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada’s national housing agency, has notably reduced IT operations’ carbon footprint. CMHC has undertaken, with Accenture, a major IT transformation, including a transition to the cloud, that has resulted in a reduction of its IT-related CO2 emissions by more than 80%.
“Every company now needs to master change at speed and scale to benefit not only shareholders and employees but also our communities and planet,” said Accenture Cloud First Global Services’ lead Kishore Durg.
“As companies accelerate cloud adoption, myNav Green Cloud Advisor can help them simultaneously address one of their most pressing challenges, which is to reduce emissions and waste with greener IT practices,” added Durg.
Accenture is teaming with a Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) applied research team to build a carbon emissions scoring system and certification for green cloud solutions. This will help enterprises’ calculate carbon emissions against industry peers.
Further, Accenture and CMU are working on a new cloud training program to upskill its Cloud First professionals to help organisations gain a balance of cloud innovation and green computing practices. This will help companies design, implement and operate the most sustainable cloud environments.
“Energy usage and carbon emissions are becoming part of the design requirements of future technology solutions,” said Majd Sakr, teacheing professor teaching professor in the Computer Science Department at CMU’s School of Computer Science.
“Institutions will have to build capacity and leverage innovative green IT tools to better measure, optimize and report their energy usage and carbon emissions,” added Sakr.
More so, Accenture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management will create a training program for Accenture Cloud First leaders. It delves deeper into the cloud’s role in enhancing speed to market, cost management, the flexibility of operations, business resilience and innovation capabilities.
The Green Cloud Advisors Program is a three-day virtual course where participants will learn about opportunities associated with cloud solutions, from energy efficiency and carbon reduction to new business models and product and service innovations.
Accenture myNav platform was announced in November 2019 to help organisations navigate, manage and migrate their cloud environments.