Use Managed Services

Leveraging managed services enables organizations to enhance operational efficiency and minimize their environmental footprint. By entrusting cloud providers to manage infrastructure, teams can focus on developing applications while optimizing resource utilization, thereby supporting sustainability objectives.

Best Practices

Leverage Managed Services for Workload Optimization

• Adopt AWS managed services like Amazon RDS for databases and Amazon ECS for container orchestration. These services automatically optimize resource usage and reduce over-provisioning.
• Utilize AWS Lambda for event-driven architectures to minimize the need for always-on servers, thus lowering energy consumption.
• Implement AWS Auto Scaling to adjust the number of running instances based on demand, ensuring hardware resources are only used when necessary.
• Consider using AWS Fargate for serverless containers, which abstracts the underlying infrastructure management, leading to efficiency and reduced environmental impact.
• Regularly review and analyze usage reports from AWS Cost Explorer to identify and eliminate underutilized resources across your managed services.

Questions to ask your team

• What managed services have you implemented to reduce your hardware footprint?
• How do you evaluate the carbon footprint of the managed services you use?
• Are you regularly assessing the efficiency of your managed services to ensure they align with your sustainability goals?
• What criteria do you use to select managed services based on their environmental impact?
• How do you track resource usage for your managed services to identify optimization opportunities?

Who should be doing this?

Cloud Architect

• Evaluate and recommend managed services based on workload requirements and sustainability goals.
• Design architecture that minimizes hardware usage and maximizes efficiency through managed services.
• Conduct regular reviews of current cloud services to ensure they align with sustainability practices.

DevOps Engineer

• Implement and manage cloud resources using managed services to reduce operational overhead.
• Automate deployment processes for managed services to enhance efficiency and reduce wastage.
• Monitor system performance and utilization to optimize resource use and minimize environmental impact.

Sustainability Officer

• Align cloud usage strategies with overall sustainability objectives.
• Establish metrics and KPIs to measure the environmental impact of cloud workloads.
• Collaborate with the cloud team to propose and promote sustainable practices across the organization.

Finance Analyst

• Analyze cost implications of using managed services and their impact on sustainability goals.
• Provide insights on cost savings achieved through efficient resource management in the cloud.
• Assess the financial benefits of reduced hardware usage and increased operational efficiency.

What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?

• Sustainability Hardware Selection Checklist: A checklist that outlines criteria for selecting cloud hardware and services, focusing on energy efficiency, resource optimization, and appropriate managed services.
• Managed Services Efficiency Report: A report highlighting the benefits and impacts of using managed services on sustainability metrics, including energy consumption and resource utilization.
• Sustainability in Cloud Architecture Guide: A comprehensive guide for architects on how to design sustainable cloud architectures, emphasizing the use of managed services to minimize hardware needs.
• Sustainability Dashboard: A dashboard that visualizes sustainability metrics and shows how managed services contribute to reduced carbon footprints and energy efficiency in operational practices.
• Sustainable IT Policy Template: A policy template that organizations can adopt to prioritize sustainability in hardware use and encourage the selection of managed services as part of their cloud strategy.

Cloud Services

AWS

• Amazon RDS: Amazon RDS automates database management tasks, allowing you to focus on applications while reducing the infrastructure needed for provisioning and maintaining databases.

Azure

• Azure SQL Database: Azure SQL Database is a managed database service that optimizes database performance and reduces the workload necessary for database maintenance.

Google Cloud Platform

• Cloud SQL: Cloud SQL provides a fully managed database service, simplifying database management and resource usage for your applications.

Question: How do you select and use cloud hardware and services in your architecture to support your sustainability goals?
Pillar: Sustainability (Code: SUS)