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This example shows that the benefits of the Cloud can be significantly
counteracted by outdated licensing models. Although economies of scale
supplier‐side allow attractively priced and highly scalable infrastructure
services, licensing the software running on it can mean the Cloud consumer
incurring additional costs, which, in the worst case, will cancel out any
advantage.
In practical terms, most software vendors handle this unsatisfactory
situation in a relatively accommodating way, and do not enforce their
theoretically enforceable claims, especially if a long‐term customer/supplier
relationship exists. Manufacturers are typically aware of the need to modify
their licensing models, and point out that new licensing models that take
Cloud developments into account are in preparation.
However, if a vendor attempts to assert a strict interpretation of existing
contracts in the context of possible license audits, ultimately, the only
solution will be to migrate to an alternative software vendor, or consider
"
Open Source" products. Open Source licensing often provides an elegant
solution that defuses the risk of licensing in the Cloud. Although it is
generally necessary to demonstrate valid authorisation to use open source
software, most open source software licenses allow very extensive use
including the right of publication.
3.6
Ecological Aspects ‐ Green IT and the Cloud
What has the Cloud to do with Green IT?
It's hard to escape from the topic of CO
2
,
or global greenhouse gas emissions
(
GHG), no matter what sector you look at. Wherever energy is used, CO
2
is
also directly or indirectly emitted. Although IT is currently only responsible
for a share of about 2 %, there is a strong increasing trend. The datacentres
are the factories of the 21st century; studies assume that data volumes will
increase fifty times, and energy consumption with them, by 2030
59
.
If the
Internet/Cloud computing was a country, it would be the fifth‐largest
electricity consumer in the world. For the sake of completeness, it should be
noted that the share of the energy consumed by datacentres, although of
course enormous, still only represent 20% of the total energy consumed by
ICT systems. The rest is distributed over telecommunications networks and
devices such as computers, mobile phones and tablets.
59
How clean is your cloud, greenpeace.org.
