90 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
90 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
title: How to store your data without CO2 emission
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pub_date: 2019-11-20
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---
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author: ungleich
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---
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twitter_handle: ungleich
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---
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_hidden: no
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---
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_discoverable: yes
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---
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abstract:
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Avoiding CO2 emissions in data storage is a daily task, too
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---
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body:
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When we talk about climate change or sustainability, we usually think
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about factories or cars. What we usually don't anticipate is how much
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we actually contribute to climate change by our digital behaviour.
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## How data is stored
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Your data is usually stored in one of the many data centers in the
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world. To save your data, multiple disks or even multiple servers are
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used to ensure that your data is safely stored.
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When you open up your mobile phone to browse pictures or to read your
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email, you access the servers to retrieve your data.
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## How data centers operate
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Most data centers use energy from the grid. This energy can be either
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produced by coal, nuclear power or renewable energy.
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Unfortunately, most of them don't run on renewable energy. Some do buy CO2
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certificates to compensate for this fact.
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The energy in a data center is spent on one side for actually running the
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servers that store your data and on cooling on the other hand. The
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amount of energy used for cooling can be quite significant, too.
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So even if you are living a very green and sustainable way, you might
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be contributing to CO2 emissions by using your default data storage.
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## An alternative: the sustainable way of saving data
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So how can we tackle this situation?
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We have worked hard here in Switzerland to create the [Data Center
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Light](https://datacenterlight.ch), a completely alternative
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approach to save as many CO2 emissions, as possible.
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And this is how it is done:
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* instead of buying certificates, we use 100% renewable energy
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* instead of buying energy, we produce it locally (using PV and a
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local hydropower plant)
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* instead of building new data centers, we modernise existing factory
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halls
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* instead of buying new servers, we buy 2nd hand (with new disks/ssds)
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## The sustainable data center
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With this approach, there is practically no CO2 emission from power
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consumption and also the grey energy is minimised. The team of
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[ungleich](https://ungleich.ch) is very proud to offer a variety of
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products that are built with sustainability in mind:
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* [Sustainable Data Storage: Zero Carbon Cloud](https://ungleich.ch/u/products/zero-carbon-cloud/)
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* [Sustainable Virtual Private Servers: Data Center Light](https://datacenterlight.ch)
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* [Sustainable IPv6 VPNs: IPv6VPN](https://ipv6vpn.ch)
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* [Sustainable IPv6 Backup](https://ungleich.ch/u/products/backup/)
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* [Sustainable Matrix chat](https://ungleich.ch/u/products/hosted-matrix-chat/)
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* [Sustainable Mattermost chat](https://ungleich.ch/u/products/zero-carbon-chat/)
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In our opinion, we can only reach sustainability, if we take actions
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in all fields of our daily life.
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If you have any questions or comments, you can reach us at
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**sustainability at ungleich.ch** or in the [ungleich
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chat](https://chat.with.ungleich.ch).
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