Carbon Savings Of Cloud-Based Enterprise Network Functions.pdf

Key Findings:

- Scope: The analysis focuses on 'Scope 2' carbon dioxide emissions related to electricity generation for powering enterprise network functions, as per greenhouse gas (GHG) protocols.

- Methodology: It involves a combination of desk research, industry insights, and data from Cloudflare and equipment vendors. Traffic demand calculations consider peak and average demands, leading to power consumption estimates for both on-premises equipment and cloud-based arrangements.

- Results: For a large enterprise, the study reveals that transitioning the specified network functions to Cloudflare products could result in an 86% reduction in annual carbon emissions. This significant saving is attributed to several factors:
- Efficient utilization of cloud resources based on peak traffic demand rather than average.
- Lower power consumption per unit of traffic compared to on-premises hardware.
- Improved power usage effectiveness (PUE) in Cloudflare data centers.
- A grid electricity mix with higher renewable energy content, lowering carbon intensity.

Assumptions and Caveats:

The analysis assumes specific network function configurations and equivalent Cloudflare products, making certain assumptions regarding traffic patterns, equipment utilization, and cloud infrastructure efficiency. The results are specific to Cloudflare's offerings and may vary with alternative cloud providers or different on-premises setups.

Conclusion:

The report underscores the substantial carbon emission savings potential in migrating enterprise network functions to the cloud, highlighting the environmental benefits of cloud computing adoption.