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I wonder how much extra revenue this will bring to AWS/GCP etc selling more instances to cover the performance loss on servers?

MBCook 9y ago
It’s a hit on AWS users, that means it’s also a hit for Amazon themselves. They’ll sell more servers, but they just lost 10% (or whatever) of their headroom all around the world.
jdc0589 9y ago
sadly, this is the first thing I wondered when all the news came out.
perfmode 9y ago
It's energy providers that will win the most.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay? At least the additional renewable generation capacity built out will exist for decades (while processors should become more efficient as these security issues are addressed and new hardware rolls out).
  - hueving 9y ago
    >All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay? Not yay. This is an overnight massive bump so they are going to consume from the same existing pool of renewables, forcing utilities to use more non renewables to make up for the demand difference. Also, even when they do build out the renewable generation to make up the difference, it's still environmentally a problem due to the manufacturing of the renewable generation (solar panels, windmills, transformers, etc). We have no surplus of renewable energy to absorb this kinda stuff so more energy usage is always bad at this point. It's just slightly less bad when they commit to paying to fund renewable.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - codazoda 9y ago
      I've read a few articles saying that there is so much Solar adoption in the U.S. that there is a surplus at some times (summer days I believe). It use to be that there was too much use from home AC systems so power was expensive during the day. It seems to be switching to night now as so much is generated during the day (with just 3% adoption of rooftop Solar). Here's an example of one article on the matter, which I just skimmed a little. http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ I'm guessing that CPU's use a whole lot less electricity than things like AC systems, so they probably don't affect total electricity used by that much. I was able to surmise that a 3 ton central air conditioner uses around 3500 watts per hour while an Intel I7 (whole system) uses around 150 watts per hour. My theory, then, is that this won't affect total power use in the U.S. all that much.
dboreham 9y ago
I'm guessing more than 1/2 of all AWS instances are idle. Probably 10% are systems nobody knows anything about, whoever started them left the company..
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Add the 5% that are nothing but public garbage bins for personal information collected by various companies and intelligence agencies, just waiting to be discovered!

MBCook 9y ago

It’s a hit on AWS users, that means it’s also a hit for Amazon themselves. They’ll sell more servers, but they just lost 10% (or whatever) of their headroom all around the world.

jdc0589 9y ago

sadly, this is the first thing I wondered when all the news came out.

perfmode 9y ago

It's energy providers that will win the most.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay? At least the additional renewable generation capacity built out will exist for decades (while processors should become more efficient as these security issues are addressed and new hardware rolls out).
- hueving 9y ago
  >All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay? Not yay. This is an overnight massive bump so they are going to consume from the same existing pool of renewables, forcing utilities to use more non renewables to make up for the demand difference. Also, even when they do build out the renewable generation to make up the difference, it's still environmentally a problem due to the manufacturing of the renewable generation (solar panels, windmills, transformers, etc). We have no surplus of renewable energy to absorb this kinda stuff so more energy usage is always bad at this point. It's just slightly less bad when they commit to paying to fund renewable.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - codazoda 9y ago
    I've read a few articles saying that there is so much Solar adoption in the U.S. that there is a surplus at some times (summer days I believe). It use to be that there was too much use from home AC systems so power was expensive during the day. It seems to be switching to night now as so much is generated during the day (with just 3% adoption of rooftop Solar). Here's an example of one article on the matter, which I just skimmed a little. http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ I'm guessing that CPU's use a whole lot less electricity than things like AC systems, so they probably don't affect total electricity used by that much. I was able to surmise that a 3 ton central air conditioner uses around 3500 watts per hour while an Intel I7 (whole system) uses around 150 watts per hour. My theory, then, is that this won't affect total power use in the U.S. all that much.

dboreham 9y ago

I'm guessing more than 1/2 of all AWS instances are idle. Probably 10% are systems nobody knows anything about, whoever started them left the company..

reaperducer 9y ago
Add the 5% that are nothing but public garbage bins for personal information collected by various companies and intelligence agencies, just waiting to be discovered!