This blog was co-written by Orange’s Thibaut Favier and VMware’s Elodie Kobeissi.
Orange, a multinational telecommunications company based in France, has committed to drastically reducing its carbon emissions for 2025. Achieving this goal will require innovative thinking and a huge effort at every level of the organization. And Orange has already begun making technological advances that are helping it make progress toward this goal.
One such effort is in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) team, Orange Private Cloud. In order to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of their private cloud infrastructure, Orange Private Cloud is providing carbon information to educate Orange employees and help avoid unnecessary carbon emissions.
This initiative is gaining momentum thanks to the introduction of a new shared service offering. Notably, cloud infrastructure in countries such as France generates most of Orange’s carbon emissions (80 to 90 percent) from Scope 3 sources as determined by the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol methodology, a recognized framework for measuring and managing emissions that enables organizations to make informed decisions toward a greener future. Because of the significance of its impact, addressing cloud infrastructure emissions is crucial, especially during the initial stages of infrastructure deployment.
Carbon emissions scopes, as laid out by the GHG Protocol methodology
With a goal of meeting this need and responding to heightened demand from environmentally conscious customers, Orange is offering transparent insights into the carbon implications generated by infrastructure deployment. To achieve this, Orange has used the custom forms in VMware Aria Automation, a multi-cloud infrastructure automation platform, to display the CO2 emissions of a virtual machine (VM) deployment. When a user requests a machine via the Service Catalog in VMware Aria Automation, an informative banner dynamically updates in real time based on the selected parameters, reflecting the carbon footprint of the VM. As shown in the below images, the carbon impact varies between a small-size and a larger-size Linux virtual machine that is being requested, with the possibility to have up to six attached disks.
A small-size virtual machine request
A large-size virtual machine request
Using this tool, when provisioning a virtual machine through VMware Aria Automation, users will be better informed about the carbon footprint of their VM deployment. The carbon emission factors are dependent on the VM’s flavor (size), the number of virtual central processing units (vCPUs), and the amount of RAM, in addition to the number and size of the VMs’ disks.
To provide this valuable information to users, VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator actions are used in the custom form designer in VMware Aria Automation Service Broker.
Here is the methodology that Orange used:
1. In VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator, create an action named getCarbonScoreInfos. This action includes four steps:
a. Get to the total size of disks attached to the virtual machine.
b. Assuming you are using Flavor Mappings in VMware Aria Automation, you must obtain the CPU and RAM values associated with the flavors configured. Of course, there are several ways to obtain these values, ranging from using the REST API to simply using a configuration element in VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator. In this example, the REST API was used in a VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator action named getCpuRamFromFlavor.
c. Carbon scores based on the virtual machine’s hardware components are specified in a configuration element. Orange’s carbon score is built upon emission factors derived from an internal model at their entity level. They have incorporated figures from ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition, as well as other figures that provided by a private firm that assists companies transitioning toward decarbonization. VMware Aria Operations can also help provide figures to build the carbon score using VMware Aria Operations sustainability dashboards.
d. Calculate the CO2 emissions in kg/year:
diskcarbon = (totalDiskSize * carbonScoreSTK)/1024 to convert to TB
memorycarbon = (MemoryinMb * carbonScoreRAM)/1024 to convert to GB
cpucarbon = CpuCount * carbonScoreCPU
VM CO2 emissions in kg/year = diskcarbon + memorycarbon + cpucarbon.
- In VMware Aria Automation custom forms, add and configure a field of type Text Area with a value source as External source. Search for the action and bind the inputs of the action to the field inputs.
- To customize the appearance of the banner as in image 2 and 3, custom CSS was used. Here is an example of the CSS file that was imported in the custom forms:
The carbon footprint transparency feature in custom forms empowers users to make informed and responsible decisions when provisioning cloud infrastructure. By understanding the environmental impact of their choices, they can play an active role in reducing the physical server count, relying on the efficiency and restraint of Orange’s clients. This non-coercive initiative has received positive feedback for its educational value, substantial gains are anticipated once as infrastructure matures.
Orange remains committed to delivering innovative solutions that align with its sustainability goals and contribute to a greener, more sustainable future. Together, we can make a significant difference in the fight against climate change.
Learn more about how Orange France is advancing toward its ambitious energy-saving goals and how it stays ahead with fast, sustainable IT.
Case Study: Orange France Stays Ahead with Fast and Sustainable IT
