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Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

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Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#151

Post by CaptArmchair »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #130
CaptArmchair wrote: post #70

This is where the emerging field of research data management and digital preservation come into play. Reproducibility and vetting research output, as well as other forms of accountability requires research data to be present and available. Hence the requirement to safeguard that data. However, a personal share hosted on institutional cloud storage isn't the best place to store research data for lack of accessibility,…

The linked post is exactly about McGill, so I either didn't get the irony in your post or you should read the linked post and https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedri...

You're linking to a generalized announcement that mentions research data, but omits mentioning the institution's own research data management services which exist specifically to deal with this challenge.

The linked post nowhere mentions research data management, or the fact that there's awareness about the existing of services at the institution.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#152

Post by iinnPP »

tallanvor wrote: post #142
aragilar wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what? 100TB is stingy as! At my institution, there's approximately 50000 students and staff, if 100TB is all they get, that's only 2GB each (and that's not just for email, that's for all storage)!

Without knowing how much they're paying, how can we say if that's stingy or not? If a school gets 100TB storage for free, I'd hardly call that stingy.

It's not free. It requires students to sign a bunch of ToS "agreements" that are terrible. It locks students in to learning on their software or using their overpriced cloud offerings.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#153

Post by cm2187 »

Stranger43 wrote: post #114
cm2187 wrote: post #87

Doesn't the university have network drives?

Probably not, not if they bought into the o365 product hook line and sinker, which you kind of have to if your a windows shop as MS is using every dark pattern known to them to make it harder for office files to exist outside of one-drive/sharepoint365/teams. It's teoretically possible if your vigilant of able to force users to use your published workflow to run windows with purely onprem resources but it's not the p…

But surely the research data isn't stored on a personal onedrive folder. I mean what happenes if the researcher resigns, the university loses the data?

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#154

Post by croes »

formerly_proven wrote: post #56
crimbles wrote: post #5

Is that the same Microsoft which is throwing money into running environmentally destructive AI workloads as their key business driver?

Same Microsoft that's forcing roughly 250 million perfectly fine PCs to be replaced due to new Windows 11 "requirements" and Windows 10 EOL.

But they can't blame the users for that, so that's not a problem.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#155

Post by croes »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #118
rpy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is about Microsoft, it’s pointing out their hypocrisy feigning concern about the environmental footprint of their cloud infrastructure.

Still no answer on why AIs are bad for the environment compared to not using AIs.

https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/how-much-water-does-ai-consume

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#156

Post by noirscape »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #123
Dalewyn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It should be technically feasible to make setting up backups to your own NAS at home A proper backup is 3 copies, 2 on different media, 1 offsite. Absolutely no average person is going to bother with any of that. Three copies? Ridiculous, he will say. 2 different media? I ain't made of money, he will say; also WTF is a "media"? CNN can backup my stuff? 1 offsite ? I'm not going to juggle stuff in and out of my bank'…

I’m sad for this average person, seems like if anything changes they’re going to be in big troubles

Unfortunately that average person makes up about 99% of the computer using population. And that's me being generous - being less generous it's probably closer to 99.9%.

Computer literacy is at an all-time low because the overwhelming majority of it has been hidden away as much as possible by large tech giants in favor of their own corporate "clouds".

And no - the "next generation" isn't doing any better on that either because they were raised on these devices and often don't know, or worse, don't care about that sort of thing. It's really bad.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#157

Post by robertlagrant »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #149
robertlagrant wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the reason given is marketing, but that's 2024 for you. I think that only approving of environmental things if they cost you is a bit perverse, though. This is lower-hanging fruit. Why not take it?

Would this not amount to being happy about all cost reductions at the expense of a customer? Say I get less laundry detergent for the same price, should I be happy for the opportunity to wash my clothes less often to not pay more money to the manufacturer, as it is a lower hanging fruit? To MSFT there is no lower hanging fruit to more revenue than reducing what they give a customer while charging the same amount of m…

> To me, that is deeply unethical behaviour.

This is just 2024 again. My theory is here that regardless of what you might otherwise think of ESG, I think one of the key things to bear in mind is it imposes is that customer value is not the top priority.

I understand of course that the longer-term idea is that, say, all businesses get better at waste disposal, and once that happens businesses can prioritise customer value again, but that will take a long time, if ever, to manifest all its goals fully. Additionally, in reality it seems that it encourages businesses to become performative in the way you're highlighting.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#160

Post by flanked-evergl »

robertlagrant wrote: post #157
flanked-evergl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would this not amount to being happy about all cost reductions at the expense of a customer? Say I get less laundry detergent for the same price, should I be happy for the opportunity to wash my clothes less often to not pay more money to the manufacturer, as it is a lower hanging fruit? To MSFT there is no lower hanging fruit to more revenue than reducing what they give a customer while charging the same amount of m…

> To me, that is deeply unethical behaviour. This is just 2024 again. My theory is here that regardless of what you might otherwise think of ESG, I think one of the key things to bear in mind is it imposes is that customer value is not the top priority. I understand of course that the longer-term idea is that, say, all businesses get better at waste disposal, and once that happens businesses can prioritise customer v…

Private companies in market economies have always been incentivized to maximize profit, and one way to do that is to charge as possible for as little as possible. Nothing has changed. The only difference here is now they have a bunch of people cheering them on for saving the planet when they do this.

If you cheer on all other forms of shrinkflation, then sure, this is something you would also like.

I should be clear that I don't think profit maximization is bad, I'm pro market economies, and this is just a fact of life in a market economy, but it's also nothing new, and it has nothing to do with saving the planet.

The main thing I'm bothered about is that this practice is cheered on by environmentalists when it is done by a company that has done everything possible to disrupt market dynamics. If one laundry detergent manufacturer does shrinkflation, I can fairly easily switch to another, if MSFT does shrinkflation on cloud storage, and they bundled it with everything else, I can't easily switch.

MSFT will also keep doing this, their first aim with this to become irreplaceable, and then they can start jacking up prices, and now they also figured out how to get some praise for saving the planet while they engage in incredibly immoral business practises. This is impressive, but more in that it actually works.

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