Authors: Rajeeve Narula, Jarno Lindqvist, Lars Arne Skår, Patric Hamilton, Cecily Hoffritz
Embracing the Green Ethos: Keeping IT Sustainable
Figure 1: Sheep grazing in a solar panel park at a software company focused on sustainability.
In today's eco-conscious business landscape, sustainability is vital for corporate responsibility and quality. Information technology, integral to operations, has expanded its environmental footprint through increased computing demands, electronic waste, energy consumption, and resulting carbon emissions. Sustainable companies manage IT assets to extend their lifespan, reduce material impacts, and optimize energy use. Procuring energy-efficient, eco-certified IT assets is essential.
Achieving sustainability involves operational excellence and effective IT Operations Management to ensure reliability and performance. Beyond IT, companies should reduce energy consumption in offices and data centers, promote recycling, minimize waste, and encourage sustainable employee practices. For software companies, this means optimizing configurations, efficient coding, and lean operations to meet SLA goals while scaling down when feasible.
Embracing Green with Low Code: Streamlining Data Management and Analytics
A picture says more than a thousand words. Low-code platforms are akin to looking at a picture rather than looking at massive amounts of code and worded explanations of the code. They provide a visual, intuitive interface where users can efficiently manage and analyze data. With user-friendly interfaces and drag-and-drop tools, these platforms streamline workflows, making tasks quicker to comprehend and execute. This visual approach not only enhances productivity but also reduces the complexity typically associated with traditional coding methods, thereby promoting sustainability through lower energy consumption. Operating in cloud environments, these low-code platforms optimize resource usage and provide:
Figure 2: Rendition of a low-code visual pipeline for easy readability and understanding.
Embracing Green with Cost-efficient Storage and Computing
Optimizing storage and computing not only reduces costs but also enhances sustainability. With various cloud options available, practicality plays a crucial role in decision-making. Consider these options tailored to business needs:
Embracing Green with SAS for Data Exploration and AI Modeling
SAS Viya revolutionizes data exploration and AI modeling with its powerful in-memory analytics engine, setting a new standard for efficiency and performance. By seamlessly integrating optimized visualization and demonstrating significant speed advantages over competitors, SAS Viya not only enhances analytical workflows but also supports sustainable computing practices, making it a preferred choice for organizations focused on innovation and environmental responsibility.
According to a study by the Futurum Group, SAS Viya demonstrates significant performance advantages:
Figure 3: SAS Viya performance impact from Futurum Group study.
Here are some key points that highlight SAS Viya efficiency and capabilities for greater sustainability:
SAS In-Memory Analytics Engine:
Optimized Visualization:
In summary, SAS Viya stands out for its combination of in-memory processing, efficient data handling, optimized visualization, and substantial performance advantages over competitors, all while promoting greater sustainability and allowing organizations to enjoy the fruits of successful innovation.
Figure 4: Saving on cost by being clever with storage - move data where it can be most efficiently explored.
Embracing Green with SAS for Efficient Computing
AI applications with efficient Workload Management capabilities provide superior control over compute resources compared to generic cloud services like Kubernetes. This includes detailed scalability support with awareness of job dependencies and priorities managed within the application, abstracted from Kubernetes.
Furthermore, adopting applications that support In-Database processing enhances sustainability efforts by reducing or eliminating the need for additional compute resources. This approach optimizes resource usage by leveraging database-proximate resources, minimizing data egress costs, improving network efficiency, and enhancing the end-user experience—an advantageous strategy across all aspects.
SAS as a Company Embraces Green Powered by Data and Analytics
Being open about sustainability is key, and from the IoT data collected through its smart campus project to powering office buildings with clean energy from its solar farms, a company such as SAS uses its own visualization solution to collect, manage, calculate, and report its environmental performance. Anyone can view SAS’ sustainability metrics from the dashboard here: SAS Institute Sustainability Dashboard
Figure 5: SAS goal to improve office CO2 emissions at SAS headquarters.
Companies like SAS go above and beyond in their pursuit of sustainability by providing solar power to run their data centers at their headquarters in Cary, NC. Moreover, they employ a herd of sheep to maintain the grass under and around the solar panels, ensuring the area is safely passable and easily accessible for regular maintenance. You can read more about this in the following blog on corporate sustainability: SAS, Solar Farms and Sheep: Working Together for the Good of the Planet
Figure 6: Sheep grazing in a solar panel park at SAS campus headquarters in Cary, North Carolina.
Finally, by using SAS software, organizations can emulate SAS's approach to becoming more sustainable. With SAS's comprehensive solutions for data collection, analysis, and reporting, organizations gain the tools needed to make informed decisions and create positive environmental change.
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