Green Computing

By Christina Page and Khaled Elmeleegy


Global electricity consumption from the ICT sector has increased drastically in recent years. It is expected to continue to grow in the near future, given increased total Internet and telecommunications traffic as well as increased performance demand. At the same time, improved server efficiency and opportunities for consolidation may drive reduction in energy consumption.

Challenges

How will innovations in computing such as cloud or virtualization affect future ICT energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?

  • What impact will virtualization, cloud computing, and other innovations have upon net and relative energy consumption?
  • What are likely to be factors that increase or decrease energy efficiency at the level of code, server utilization, and data center design?
  • How do we benchmark improvements in energy efficiency of computing in a manner that is both standardized and meaningful on an industry level (MIPS, per search, per page view, per visit)?