Eric Foley
A web hosting is 24 hours dedicated service provided. A web server is scalable, secure and the most effective way of dealing with the traffic on the website, or for controlling all the operations in a network of computers. The features it provides are immense. The server which sits at the end of a provider is not one. At the provider’s end, there are numerous dedicated servers which are present; each running 24*7.
Implementing all these servers requires strict vigilance and of course huge power. A lot of electricity is consumed in the process of implementing and maintaining all the servers accurately and efficiently round the clock. When you charge a phone or a laptop continuously, it becomes so warm. A place where all the servers reside is called as a data centre. Imagine the magnitude of heat generated at a data centre! It’s huge. Maintaining the data centres is one of the most difficult tasks. In the process of maintaining the data centre, i.e. providing artificial cooling, and security to the servers, again a lot of energy is consumed.
So where does all this electricity come from?? It comes from the same energy resource from where you and I get. All the energy comes from the conventional and non-renewable source of energy i.e. burning of coal and gas. More the consumption more is the pressure on the natural resources and the environment. To overcome this and to make the web-hosting environment-friendly, Green hosting came into the picture.
What is a green Web Hosting?
Green web hosting is a step taken to contribute towards the environment by using natural resources which are environment-friendly. The primary aim of a green web hosting is to optimize the energy used. They implement those machines which use minimum energy to run. The data centres are so designed that the energy consumption is cut whenever it is not required. They not only work to save energy but also put great thoughts in how to obtain energy that is generated by inexhaustible natural resources like wind, water, and solar energy.
How do you go green in Hosting?
To indulge in be eco friendly and save the environment has been the need of the hour. It has also been a concerning topic for hosting service providers also. There are certificates of recognition ‘REC’ i.e. the ‘Renewable Energy certificate’ given to the agencies that provide web hosting for their eco-friendly methods.
Going green isn’t only restricted to saving energy, it also means giving back to nature. One has to be very careful of what they are depositing in nature. All the electronic companies are very well aware that their gadgets contain many toxic and hazardous elements. There are many electric equipments which give out toxic gases in their lifetime and after they have been retired, all their parts are nothing but a heap of toxic material which faces problems of disposal. Green web hosting provider often dive deep into their disposal plans. They pay attention to the smallest part of a computer, think of a way to reuse it and if no more reusable, they dispose of in a way that causes minimum waste in nature.
How do you identify genuine green web hosts?
With each passing day, the conservation of energy is becoming increasingly important. Saving and generating power, deflecting from generating waste in the environment has become a dire need and more than that a responsibility of an individual as well as the organizations.
Some hosting providers actually indulge in green practices and put the environment first and business later. But in the cutthroat competition, there are many Web hosting providers with a mask of green web hosting working in just the way they were. Some buy the ‘REC’ and pretend to go green. They involve themselves in using cheap machines but cost as much as a green hosting provider would charge. They have plans which are very cheap and saving money is very tempting. But while employing the web host you need to take the call and pick the one which actually indulges into eco friendly practices.
You need to carefully look into the policies of the web hosts, do a background check to confirm if they actually deploy environmental friendly sources to produce electricity. Go through their REC and find if the document is original and earned or faked for pretence.
There’s are numerous options available and there should be no second thought when it comes to taking steps for saving the environment and going green, hence choose your lifestyle and web hosting provider carefully.
What other alternates can you go for?
Apart from going green in hosting a website, the major change that you can go in for, and that is the type of hosting you take. A dedicated server or a shared hosting uses a lot of resources. These resources are working all the time and thus consume a lot of energy. Instead of a dedicated server, you can always choose a Virtual Private Server hosting. There are many Budget VPS Hosting providers like HiFormance that you can look out for. A VPS is a very good option as it consumes less energy and is more efficient.
a responsibility of an individual as good
Thank you for sharing this story on this site. It is interesting.
Super good article. Thanks.
What an interesting post, thanks for the wealth of information.
I’m an Icelander, and here we have been trying our hands on green hosting. We got the renewable green energy coming from waterfalls and geothermal + mild to cold climax, and it’s rather windy here. After few years of experiments and trying to find what customers we can best serve it seems to be thus that need the most cooling, because beside the renewable green energy, it of course cost, but the funny thing is that it is the weather (that we are not always so happy with : ) that is best for cooling. So, for instance, there is a hugs Bitcoin mining here that needs a lot of cooling, and it’s this climax that seems to fit that kind of operation well. But maybe not all type of green hosting. So we have found out that we can offer one kind operations green hostings that fit its need but not meet the requirements another. Ghes it’s the same whit all that’s in this business.