When it comes to a sustainable future, what technologies do you think of first? Most would say electric cars, solar panels or wind farms. However, we increasingly need another technology to be at the top of the list: communication networks.
Leading Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are increasingly at the forefront of environmental sustainability. It's a good thing, too—information and communication technology (ICT) currently accounts for 10 percent of the world's energy use . With the advent of denser and more complex 5G networks, communications networks could become even greater sources of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Fortunately, the world's leading communications service providers are taking steps to improve efficiency and reduce emissions across their networks. VMware plays an important role in helping them do more with less.
A recent scientific paper by VMware researchers and engineers lays out four key pillars of an ICT zero-carbon strategy:
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Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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improve energy efficiency
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switch to renewable energy
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Break down institutional barriers to sustainable operations
VMware is working across all of these pillars to help our communications service provider customers build more sustainable networks and businesses. Together we are taking a giant step towards a zero-carbon future.
ICT Zero Carbon Challenge
The world's communication networks and data centers do amazing things for modern businesses and consumers. But they have also historically played a large (and growing) role in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. According to a 2018 study, data centers in particular consume a lot of electricity—generating as much carbon dioxide as the airline industry in total. And the problem is getting worse, with another study predicting that by 2030, the information and communications sector could account for 20 percent of global emissions.
A big driver of this spike is 5G. The Global Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) estimates that a potential 1,000-fold increase in data traffic, combined with the new infrastructure enabled by 5G, could triple the industry's overall energy consumption. 451 Research predicts that 5G will increase total network energy consumption by up to 170% by 2026, with macro nodes and network data centers seeing the largest increases.
These predictions present serious challenges to CSPs and the ICT ecosystems that support them, but also enormous opportunities. If we can make even small changes to CSP networks and operating models, these efforts combined can make significant progress towards the industry's goal of zero carbon.
VMware leads the way
VMware is in an excellent position to help advance these zero-carbon efforts, and we're using it to drive change. VMware's commitment to environmental sustainability continues through time. VMware is a certified carbon neutral company powered 100% by renewable energy. We have played a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions both internally and for our customers over the years.
As an early pioneer and leader in virtualization, VMware's success has been in helping organizations grow their businesses while using less ICT hardware and reducing energy consumption and waste. According to the IDC report, VMware's virtualization innovation from 2003 to 2019 brought:
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Global Enterprises Reduce Deployment of Over 142 Million Physical Servers
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Cumulative energy savings of nearly 1.5 billion megawatt-hours (MWh) by avoiding IT infrastructure
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A total of 1.2 billion tons of CO2 emissions avoided (in 2019 alone, VMware virtualization avoided the equivalent of taking nearly 33 million cars off the road. )
Virtualization is just one part of VMware's commitment to sustainability.
Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
In recent years, with the growth of networks and data centers, ICT infrastructure now accounts for a large portion of the world's total carbon emissions, presenting a huge opportunity for zero-carbon innovation. In addition to the benefits of virtualization mentioned above, VMware helps CSPs and enterprises reduce their emissions through several initiatives:
CSP automation : As CSPs adopt telco cloud architectures, their operations will become more complex. VMware Telco Cloud Automation (TCA) simplifies the process of packaging virtualized and containerized network functions (VNF/CNF) onto servers, reducing the time required to deploy base stations by up to 80%. This helps operators reduce truck rolls to expand 5G deployments and refreshes, while reducing emissions associated with deploying and testing 5G equipment.
Emissions Tracking : We are building new tools to help CSPs measure carbon emissions from computing infrastructure. For example, VMware Aria Operations features the industry's first sustainability dashboard that helps enterprises identify idle workloads and optimize their carbon footprint. Businesses can use these tools to measure power consumption and track the carbon footprint of their data centers.
Improve energy efficiency and switch to renewable energy
The greatest opportunity for CSPs to advance their zero-carbon initiatives involves reducing energy consumption, especially in the radio access network (RAN). According to one study, RAN accounts for more than half of all energy used by CSP networks. VMware is developing several smart power innovations to help solve this problem, including:
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Hypervisor Management Tools : Reduce emissions and energy consumption by shutting down parts of the RAN when not in use
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Traffic-Based Power Management : RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) application that manages power across base stations based on real-time traffic loads
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Deep Cooling Technology : Use artificial intelligence (AI) to model power loads, heating and cooling systems in large data centers, and automatically adjust control parameters to optimize power consumption, saving up to 30% in cooling system energy consumption (Article address: https://octo.vmware.com/deep-cooling-solution-in-data-centers/)
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Cohere's Spectrum Multiplier RIC App : Combined with VMware RIC, helps CSPs deliver up to 2x the spectrum capacity using about the same amount of energy
VMware is also helping CSPs and enterprises shift more of their business to renewable energy through the following innovations:
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Carbon-aware workload distribution : We are developing a new solution, which we are demonstrating at Mobile World Congress 2022, that tracks carbon-intensity data from the grid to make more informed workload placement decisions—possibly Reduce RAN emissions by up to 52%.
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Workload shifting : Because renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are not available everywhere, VMware is developing tools to help CSPs shift workloads as much as possible to data centers powered by renewable energy.
overcoming institutional barriers
Often, the biggest hurdles to a zero-carbon future have nothing to do with technology. They stem from social factors: culture, policy, process, and resistance to change. VMware is working closely with CSPs and other industry leaders to break down these barriers and enable a more sustainable future.
To help communicate opportunity clearly within CSP organizations, VMware works with our customers to create demos that provide the economic, performance, and sustainability case for transformational projects. Once the discussions begin, VMware hosts working sessions to help the wider organization engage in sustainability conversations with our team of experts. Between flexible business models and VMware Green Tools training (Aria mentioned above, Telco Cloud Operations, etc.), our team helps you provide the information and experience you need to overcome obstacles.
VMware technologists play leadership roles in many industry groups shaping zero-carbon ICT initiatives, including Next Generation Sustainable Digital Infrastructure (based on a partnership between VMware and the National Science Foundation), the Green Software Foundation (GSF ), the Green G Working Group within the NextG Alliance (NextG), etc. Through these efforts, we are helping to develop best practices, tools and standards for more sustainable ICT software, hardware and processes.
Because businesses around the world share similar sustainability goals, we urge you to join the VMware Zero Carbon Commitment initiative. The VMware Zero Carbon Commitment Providers have set a goal to use 100 percent renewable energy to power their data centers and networks or become carbon neutral by 2030. These providers are also VMware Certified Cloud (Cloud Verified) – using the full VMware Cloud infrastructure to provide unrivaled cloud services to their customers. The goal is to make it easier for corporate clients to find service providers who can help them achieve their sustainability/net zero goals.
Building Tomorrow's Sustainable Network
CSPs and their suppliers face a daunting task in realizing zero-carbon ICT. Fortunately, visionary leaders across the industry are working hard to make this vision a reality. VMware is pleased to play a key role in this effort.
The examples cited here represent only a small portion of VMware's sustainability efforts. For more details on the many projects we are working on, download the white paper, " How VMware Can Help Create Tomorrow's Sustainable Telecommunications Network ."
(https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/docs/vmw-telco-sustainability-white-paper.pdf)
Content Source｜Public Account: VMware China R&D Center