Green IT: Cloud computing not so Green: Academic

University of Melbourne professor, Rod Tucker, says it is better to using a modern, mid-range computing over cloud-based computing in some instances

Cloud computing isn't particularly energy efficient, according to University of Melbourne professor, Rod Tucker.

Speaking at the Green IT virtual conference this week, Tucker said that, in some cases, using a modern mid-range computer for computing tasks used less energy than relying on existing cloud storage and computing services.

Director of the university's Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES), Tucker conducted research into the energy efficiency of various cloud computing tasks and how they relate to traditional, local computing processes. 

In his main example, Tucker compared how much energy different types of computing sources would use when encoding multiple half hour videos over the course of a week. In the tests, cloud-based computing sources proved more efficient than a mid-range, modern computer for low quantities of video encoding tasks but, as the number of tasks increased, cloud computing became less energy efficient and ultimately cost more than running a mid-range computing.

"As you use more encodings per week, because more data is transported across the network, the amount of energy increases," Tucker said, attributing extra energy to transport energy costs.

Tucker's studies concluded that, "at least in some instances, cloud computing is less energy efficient than using an efficient modern computer at the place you want to do the computing."

On the contrary, however, Tucker pointed to video conferencing as a much more energy efficient way to communicate over long distances when compared to transport by plane.

According to Tucker's studies, a trip between Melbourne and Auckland, New Zealand would produce 300 kilograms per person of carbon dioxide. When using video conferencing between the two locations, however, the amount of carbon dioxide produced would be an average of 5kg per person for the same amount of productivity.

"I think video conferencing is clearly gong to be a very important way in reducing greenhouse gases from travel."

IBES is a member of the GreenTouch consortium, an Alcatel Lucent Bell Labs-led initiative which aims to reduce the Internet's carbon footprint by 1000 times what it currently is today.

More about: Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs, etwork, Lucent, University of Melbourne, University of Melbourne

Comments

1

John

Tue 01/06/2010 - 12:29

So what I'm basicly reading is that a datacenter or 3 sharing the workload of hundreds of users would be less energy effecient then hundreds of users burning the fuels to make such powerful machines etc etc.

I wonder if environments have been taken into account.

E.g. a Datacenter in Alaska uses less power then a data center in sydeny.

100 computers in east timor running off a horrible plant would output more carbon then a few servers would.

Always fun to conduct a study and restrictive it to such a small scale.

Never mind about distributed workloads, environment changing workloads (Where by if the outside temp rises to much, the workload gets changed to a different datacenter where it's colder and there by more energy effecient, thus using less power to stay cold).

2

James Hutchinson

Tue 01/06/2010 - 13:17

@John

From what I saw, Tucker's concern was mainly around data transport costs, in which you have to take into account the data centre's power consumption, as well as the power consumption of the core routers and servers, long-haul links, access networks, and the access portal. It all adds up despite distributed computing and shared platforms.

3

Eirikur Sveinn Hrafnsson

Tue 01/06/2010 - 22:47

Don't forget the cooling overhead as well...

However James is referring to the way things are done today.
We are taking another approach...

*enter pitch mode*
Greenqloud is the world's first truly green public compute cloud. In other words we are cleantech startup in Iceland that wants to change the way big and small companies host their servers and store their data using cloud computing and a 100% clean power grid! So hosting on Greenqloud has a zero carbon footprint. http://www.greenqloud.com
*end pitch mode*

Public cloud providers other then ourselves simply aren't pursuing clean energy sources YET. But that will hopefully change and then it will not simply be a matter of infrastructure efficiency but a matter of trace-ability to the energy source that decides wether the provider is truly green or not. It should be easier for big cloud providers to take the steps to only use renewables and then "the cloud is green"/"the cloud isn't green" debate will change dramatically.

cheers
Eirikur Hrafnsson - CEO Greenqloud

some articles about us:
We are a finalist of GigaOm's LaunchPad competition:
http://earth2tech.com/2010/05/28/greenqloud-icelands-clean-power-cloud-computing-co/

http://www.greenbang.com/icelandic-startup-aims-to-deliver-first-green-computing-cloud_14384.html

http://www.nordicenergysolutions.org/inspirational/cleaner-clouds

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