Power savings of 60-80%, rack space reductions of up to 80%, and CO2 emissions cut by nearly 200 tons per year – these are not just sustainability wins but direct cost-saving measures.
For enterprises, every kilowatt-hour saved translates into lower operational expenses, freeing up budget for innovation. As organisations modernise infrastructure with hybrid multicloud strategies, they are seeing substantial reductions in overhead costs while improving agility and resilience.
AI and GenAI workloads are adding new pressures, requiring seamless mobility across on-premises, edge, and cloud environments while minimising environmental impact. In a recent white paper, IDC surveyed customers using Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) to ascertain how organisations using NC2 are reducing overprovisioning, improving disaster recovery, and optimising workload placement by consolidating infrastructure and leveraging automated management. In addition, they are ensuring long-term regulatory compliance and operational resilience.
Sustainability as a Business Driver
The rise of AI, GenAI, and other data-intensive workloads has introduced unprecedented demands on IT infrastructure. These workloads require significant computing power, increasing energy and cooling consumption. The ability to allocate resources dynamically across hybrid multicloud environments – ensuring workloads run in the most efficient location – has become crucial for both cost management and sustainability.
According to IDC’s Future Enterprise Resiliency and Spending Survey (Wave 8, September 2024), 80% of organisations investing in data centre modernisation cite power and cooling efficiency as a critical factor. With electricity costs rising and sustainability mandates tightening worldwide, optimising infrastructure has become a top priority for CIOs and IT leaders.
The ROI of Sustainable Infrastructure
Real-world examples highlight the financial and operational impact of hybrid multicloud adoption. IDC spoke to a global media company that was facing growing infrastructure complexity, rising operational costs, and increased energy consumption due to a sprawling on-premises environment. As part of its digital transformation strategy, the company transitioned to a hybrid cloud model, consolidating its infrastructure while optimising workload distribution.
By reducing 72 server racks across two data centres down to just 14, the company slashed power consumption by 75% – equating to thousands in annual energy cost savings. These reductions in infrastructure overhead contributed directly to the company’s bottom line, freeing up capital for strategic IT investments. Additionally, improved workload efficiency cut unnecessary cloud expenses, further reinforcing the financial case for sustainability-driven modernisation.
Such transformations underscore the role of intelligent cloud management in driving efficiency. AI-driven insights and automation are becoming critical for businesses looking to balance sustainability with operational agility, ensuring workloads are optimally placed across on-premises and cloud environments to maximise performance while minimising resource waste.
Enhancing Sustainability and Agility in the Public Sector
Similarly, one European public sector organisation successfully navigated this transition by leveraging Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) to migrate from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud-first model. This shift modernised their IT operations and delivered tangible environmental and operational benefits.
By consolidating and optimising workloads in the cloud, the organisation achieved a 60.3% reduction in power consumption, eliminating nearly 200 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually – while also lowering its operational costs. This reduction in energy usage directly translated into lower electricity bills and long-term infrastructure savings, proving that sustainability efforts can be a powerful driver of financial efficiency.
Beyond the environmental impact, the migration also strengthened operational agility. The organisation gained the ability to dynamically allocate compute resources, ensuring that workloads were efficiently distributed to meet demand without unnecessary energy waste. Additionally, by running in a secure hybrid cloud environment, the agency maintained compliance with strict data sovereignty regulations, ensuring that sensitive data remained protected within designated geographic boundaries.
This transformation highlights the growing role of intelligent cloud management in balancing sustainability with performance and compliance needs, offering a blueprint for other public sector entities looking to optimise their infrastructure while reducing their carbon footprint.
Optimising Workloads for Efficiency
One of the key advantages of hybrid multicloud is the ability to optimise workload placement dynamically. Traditional on-premises infrastructure often forces businesses to overprovision resources, leading to unnecessary energy consumption and underutilisation. With a hybrid approach, workloads can seamlessly move between on-prem, public cloud, and edge environments based on real-time requirements.
This flexibility enhances efficiency and helps mitigate risks associated with cloud repatriation. Many organisations have found that shifting back from public cloud to on-premises infrastructure is sometimes necessary due to regulatory compliance, data sovereignty concerns, or cost considerations. A hybrid multicloud strategy ensures organisations can make these transitions smoothly without disrupting operations.
Automation and Intelligent Management
Beyond workload placement, automation and visibility play a central role in sustainability efforts. Many enterprises struggle with cloud sprawl, leading to unaccounted-for infrastructure costs and inefficient resource utilisation. According to IDC’s 2024 State of FinOps Survey, 74% of respondents sought better visibility into their cloud spending, with up to 30% of costs classified as ‘waste.’
With the dynamic nature of cloud environments, enterprises really require solutions that offer a unified view of their hybrid multicloud infrastructure. Technologies that integrate AI-driven insights to optimise energy usage and automate resource allocation are gaining traction. For example, some organisations have addressed these challenges by adopting solutions such as Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), which helps businesses track sustainability metrics while maintaining operational efficiency.
The Future of Enterprise IT: Balancing Performance and ESG Goals
IDC predicts that by 2026, 60% of large organisations will require carbon neutrality strategies as part of their IT procurement processes – up from 40% in 2023. This shift underscores the growing intersection between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives and IT decision-making.
Hybrid multicloud infrastructure offers enterprises a sustainable and future-ready approach to modernisation. Enterprises that embrace intelligent workload placement, data centre consolidation, and automation aren’t just cutting emissions; they’re cutting costs. As regulatory pressures and energy prices continue to rise, organisations that modernise their IT infrastructure today will gain a competitive financial edge, ensuring both sustainability and profitability in the long run.
About the Author
Mat Brown is Technical Lead, Data Centre & Sustainability at Nutanix. Nutanix is a global leader in cloud software, offering organizations a single platform for running apps and data across clouds. With Nutanix, companies can reduce complexity and simplify operations, freeing them to focus on their business outcomes. Building on its legacy as the pioneer of hyperconverged infrastructure, Nutanix is trusted by companies worldwide to power hybrid multicloud environments consistently, simply, and cost-effectively.
