View the answers to our FAQs using the dropdown below.
If you have any further queries, you can get in touch with us here.
Tailpipe is a software solution that uses billing and usage data from your cloud service provider (CSP), combines it with other data from the CSP and other third parties (including our own research) to accurately measure your organization’s carbon emissions from cloud computing. Tailpipe is then able to suggest cost-effective carbon reduction methods without impacting performance.
Today Tailpipe supports Amazon Web Services customers, so any organization that uses AWS could save money and reduce carbon emissions by using Tailpipe.
Tailpipe obtains data from cloud providers, silicon vendors, and equipment manufacturers, enhances it with regional electricity carbon intensity data, and securely processes it using proprietary algorithms adhering to ISO 21031:2024 to generate accurate embodied and operational cloud emissions data.
Tailpipe can assess your organization’s usage of the cloud, comparing its architecture today to alternative scenarios such as migrating cloud services to data centers with lower carbon intensity or using more energy efficient cloud infrastructure. Tailpipe’s recommendations are designed to reduce carbon and lower costs without impacting performance.
There are a number of different models to purchase a Tailpipe subscription – get in touch here and the team would be happy to talk to you to find what’s right for you.
At the moment, Tailpipe supports AWS. There is some straightforward configuration required to enable Tailpipe to securely access the cost, usage and server utilization data from your AWS account. Get in touch here and we’ll let you know what to do.
If the application is hosted in your cloud infrastructure, then the application’s usage will be accounted for by Tailpipe methodology as it examines every server, data transfer and bytes of data stored.
If the application is hosted by a third-party software service provider (such as Microsoft for email, or Salesforce for CRM), then you will need to contact them about their carbon emissions associated with your usage.
Tailpipe works on hourly data.
Tailpipe retrieves new billing and usage data as soon as it’s available from the Cloud Service Provider. In AWS’ case, the CUR files are generally updated twice a day – so Tailpipe will retrieve the new data twice a day.
Yes, it is for Operational Emissions.
Cooling is one of the ‘overheads’ of the data center that’s taken into account as part of the data center’s Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) calculation. Other overheads include lighting and energy to heat associated offices and common spaces.
The information on where servers and data reside is made available in the usage reports that Tailpipe processes to calculate the carbon emissions.
Currently, no; Tailpipe is designed to work with cloud computing services.
You can access data processed by Tailpipe in three ways:
1. Through Tailpipe’s dashboard
2. Through Tailpipe’s APIs
3. By asking the team to configure Tailpipe so that its data can be written to a Cloud Service Provider storage area of your choice such as AWS S3 or Azure Blob.
Tailpipe works with partners who can help you use our software effectively and reduce your environmental impact. Our preferred partner for this is GoCodeGreen: https://gocode.green. If you’d like an intro, let us know here.
Tailpipe has been built in such a way so that it doesn’t need to be customized to meet a specific industry or organization’s requirements – it will work for every organization and provide results using a consistent methodology.
If your organization has used labels such as AWS’s Tags, then those Tags will be included in the analysis.
Tailpipe can be configured to process data from Cloud Service Providers in a way that works for your organization. This means that multiple accounts’ data can be processed and made available together through the dashboard, API, or bulk storage.
Tailpipe supports as many tags as you have in your organization.
Tailpipe has been built to the UK Government’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 and then assessed using Google Lighthouse, WAVE and Axe Devtools to make sure the implementation is in line with these guidelines and that the platform meets Level AA. So hopefully, everyone will be able to use Tailpipe.
Unlike CPU Utilization, AWS does not automatically gather GPU Utilization information from instances with accelerators.
To enable this, there are a number configuration steps that need to be taken:
1. All instances need to have an NVIDIA driver installed.
2. The AWS CloudWatch Agent needs to be installed on the instances.
3. The AWS CloudWatch Agent configuration file needs to be modified to include GPU Utilization.
4. The Accelerator instances need to have an IAM Role applied that includes CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy which allows the CloudWatch Agent to write the metrics back to CloudWatch.
This is all described in detail in this AWS document: Collect NVIDIA GPU Metrics
AWS treat the GPU Utilization metric as a Custom Metric and, as such, it is charged per month per instance.
Full details of the pricing is here: Amazon CloudWatch Pricing
For one instance, the cost would be $0.30 per month, or $3.60 a year.
For 1,000 instances, the cost would be $300 per month or $3,600 a year.
For 15,000 instances, the costs move into the next tier and would be charged at a lower rate. The first 10,000 metrics would be charged at $0.30 per month, the remaining 5,000 metrics would be charged at $0.10.
The overall charge for 15,000 instances would be:
$0.30 * 10,000 + $0.10 * 5000 = $3,500 per month or $42,000 a year.
Data security and privacy is very important to Tailpipe, and its parent company, Tivarri.
No personal data is stored nor processed by Tailpipe to calculate the carbon emissions from cloud computing.
As user login and authentication is handled by your organization’s single sign on capabilities, this also means that Tailpipe doesn’t store any usernames or passwords.
Tailpipe is built and operated by Tivarri who are ISO27001 certified for Information Security Management Systems and also UK Government Cyber Essentials Certified (the standard defined by the UK National Cyber Security Centre).
Tailpipe has been designed and built in line with ISO 21031:2024, the international standard for calculating the Carbon Intensity of Software. Tailpipe is developed and operated by Tivarri who are ISO 27001 certified for Information Security Management Systems and also UK Government Cyber Essentials Certified (the standard defined by the UK National Cyber Security Centre).
As Tailpipe uses real operational data, including the precise utilization of every server used, the carbon emissions numbers generated by Tailpipe are far more accurate and precise than a spend-based conversion.
On a monthly basis, Tailpipe updates all the reference data used as an input into the calculations to take account of any updates from the cloud service providers.
Tailpipe has two pricing models:
Baseline: £2,000 per Cloud Service Provider account for a one-off assessment.
Monitor and Reduce: £500 per Cloud Service Provider account per month, for a recurring assessment, billed annually.
We also offer volume discounts for customers with multiple Cloud Service Provider accounts.
See our Pricing page for more details.
For Tailpipe’s pricing, usage is the number of accounts you have with your cloud service provider, AWS or Azure.
We offer volume discounts for customers with multiple accounts.
Get in touch here and we’ll be happy to talk through some options with you.
That’s no problem! The pricing will be based on the aggregate sum of the accounts across your cloud service providers.
Absolutely! Get in touch here and we can talk through how you can pilot Tailpipe.
