The Computer Journal Advance Access published online on August 19, 2009
The Computer Journal, doi:10.1093/comjnl/bxp080
Energy-Efficient Cloud Computing
1 Fakultät für Informatik und Mathematik, University of Passau, Innstr. 43, 94032 Passau, Germany
2 Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK
3 HP-European Innovation Centre, HP IIC (Italy Innovation Centre), Italy
4 School of Information Technology, International University in Germany, Bruchsal, Germany
5 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Kaitoväylä 1, FI-90571 Oulu, Finland
* Corresponding author: berl{at}uni-passau.de
Received 28 July 2009; revised 28 July 2009
Energy efficiency is increasingly important for future information and communication technologies (ICT), because the increased usage of ICT, together with increasing energy costs and the need to reduce green house gas emissions call for energy-efficient technologies that decrease the overall energy consumption of computation, storage and communications. Cloud computing has recently received considerable attention, as a promising approach for delivering ICT services by improving the utilization of data centre resources. In principle, cloud computing can be an inherently energy-efficient technology for ICT provided that its potential for significant energy savings that have so far focused on hardware aspects, can be fully explored with respect to system operation and networking aspects. Thus this paper, in the context of cloud computing, reviews the usage of methods and technologies currently used for energy-efficient operation of computer hardware and network infrastructure. After surveying some of the current best practice and relevant literature in this area, this paper identifies some of the remaining key research challenges that arise when such energy-saving techniques are extended for use in cloud computing environments.
Key Words: energy-efficient computing and networking • energy-aware data centres • cloud computing