Zombie Servers

Definition

Systems that have no activity in the last six months are called comatose or zombies.

Numbers

25% of all physical servers and 30% of all virtual servers are comatose (Koomey & Anthesis, 2017).

Wasted costs: $26 billion (Business2Community.com)

Problems

• waste of money (tens of billions of dollars in the US alone)
• waste of energy
• security risk (zombie servers aren't patched and maintained)

🔗 References

Zombie Servers - Hunting Down The Lost Capital - Anthesis

Report "Zombie/Comatose servers redux" by Koomey Analytics and Anthesis (2017). https://anthesisprod.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comatose-Servers-Redux-2017.pdf

Why Cloud Zombies Are Destroying the Planet and How You Can Stop Them - Holly Cummins