AWS services and power consumption
We're bidding on a contract that requires us to disclose power used. Is anyone aware of a way to determine power consumption of AWS services?
Posted Feb 7, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC
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There is no possible way to know that and given what I know of their internal architectures, effectively unrealistic for them to determine, let alone report on per-account.
5
There are third party audit reports on the security and controls for AWS datacenters that you can request through the AWS Artifact tool. I'm not sure if it contains power consumption detail but that would be the first place I'd look.
1
Ahh, good idea, thanks!
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Indeterminate and a stupid question.
Ask the auditor how much oxygen they consumed last year. These are things we can't measure.
1†
So you're suggesting that we tell this organization that their question is stupid. Sounds like a sure fire path to winning the contract!
7
LOL
I've dealt with enough auditors to know how to deal with them.
You reply with "Indeterminate" but make sure you let them know that you're actually choosing the most ecologically safe path moving forward.
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Yeah, I think that may be the ultimate path we take. The sales guys are eager to meet this requirement. I can't see how anyone else could meet this, unless they are running their own data center.
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This might help along with the above https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-center/environmental-layer/
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It's not an unreasonable question to ask, just not answerable in this case. I can think of a number of environmental organizations that would be very interested in the carbon footprint of the services they were asking for. In a traditional data center environment, it's certainly answerable.
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In a traditional data center environment, it's certainly answerable.
For one consumer.
I agree that it's answerable. In reality you need to convey (with AWS) that you are using more efficient services resulting in a smaller carbon footprint.
-1
convince a bureaucrat that he is not reasonable
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You can bid with instances that are lowest watt power, if have to refresh my memory, but for example c5 and r5 IIRC are different CPUs, maybe it was Gen 4.. But I'd answer that way on this, in addition to anything you can find from AWS.
You'll have to research CPU model, often on page describing instance class or blog announcing it. Then pick low power cpu from Intel ARK specs page.
I doubt many people will consider that and may give you an edge..
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might be answerable if using dedicated tenancy
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I'd ask your technical account manager at AWS what their suggested solution is.
That is our plan, just wondering if I was missing anything currently available.
Why aren't you using the new "AWS Global Warming" application? It will tell you how much you're account is adding to global warming and allow you to purchase:
j/k doesn't exist, but give them time... Reinvent is only 9 months away!
why the j/k?
Cause I was "just kidding" and it doesn't exist. Here is their stance on power sources:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/
They also have their timeline:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/sustainability-timeline/
They're over 50% at this point.
Let us also not kid ourselves. While they will generate more than 100% of the GWH of power they consume and put that on the grid, data centers run on the stable base loads created by hydro, nuclear, coal and natural gas. Power companies love data centers. They gobble up power 24/7/365 and help them economize their base load and typically help fund the renewables that get added to the grid.