The Green Cloud

Khuloud Odeh

PhD Candidate

The Volgenau School of IT & Engineering

George Mason UniversityOctober 27th 2010

Notes

Visions

Numbers

Problems

Trends

Future

Vision for Computing as Utility

As of now, computer networks are still in their infancy, but as they grow up and become more sophisticated we will probably see the spread of computer utilities, which, like present electric and telephone utilities, will service individual homes and offices across the country.

(Kleinrock 1969) - UCLA

Internet 2018 Vision

“Sustainability and an eco-conscious society driven and supported by innovative Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions”

(BIAC, 2008 – Part of OCED Meeting)

Community based computing

Distributed applications

Modular web services

Portability of essential and user-centric information

Intelligent devices and mobility.

ICT in numbers

The number of personal computers in use in the most populous countries is projected to double to 2.25 billion by 2015 (Yates 2007)

11.8 million computer servers were in use in the USA in 2007, up from 2.6 million in 1997 (IDC 2007)

Mobile Subscribers are projected to reach 5.9 billion in 2013, driven by China, India and Africa (Cellular News 2009)

Internet Penetration Rate has exceeded 25% worldwide, and 90% in countries like the Netherland (InternetWorldStats 2009)

The ICT sector footprint is 2% of the global footprint (The Climate Group 2008)

The US alone is expected to retire 3 billion units of electronics by 2010 (BAN 2005)

Electricity use of servers and data centers is estimated at about 125 billion KWh - 2.9 percent of total projected nationwide electricity use in 2011 (US DOE 2007)

ICT Global footprint

The Global ICT Footprint, Source: (The Climate Group 2008)

Power Density

ASHRAE Equipment Power Density projections in data centers in the US

Electricity Use

Projected electricity use by space type in data centers, 2007 to 2011 (US DOE 2007)

Greening Data Centers

Computing software Enable shifting of computational load among systems for maximizing energy efficiency Implement virtualization to allow consolidation of server and storage hardware

IT Hardware (computing, storage, and network) Maximize utilization of storage capacity through shared data storage, data

compression, and data de-duplication Reduce energy use at lower utilizations Use centralized servers (large systems to improve sharing of computer resources

Electrical systems Use high-efficiency UPS units over full range of load Use on-site generation with grid as back-up Use energy from renewable resources

Heat Removal: Cooling system designs

Controls and management Use shared computing models, such as grid computing

Distributed Generation Use combined heat and power

Cloud

Computing

Cloud Computing and Green IT

Green IT Survey (Rackspace 2009)

54% indicated cloud computing is part of green initiatives

Cloud Computing Greener?

Source (Thorman 2009): Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system at 4 physicians practice office: Running 24 hours a day for 365 days a year, the total energy consumption for running

the application on premises would be approximately 6,570 KW/yr each, or 13,140 KW/yr total.

Running the same application using SaaS,in at a cloud provider only consumes 611.4 KW per year running their EMR software.

93% savings in energy consumption

Why Cloud Computing today?

Perfect Storm Effect

Green ICT

Notion of Green IT emerged in late 2006 and peaked in 2007 and continues to gain momentum

Late comer to the green movement compared to the buildings, water, energy, and transportation sectors: transformative role of ICT in modern information based society and its role in greening other sectors: e-commerce, e-learning, e-publishing, tele-work, environmental management information systems. Advancements in hardware technology, Smart networking and Virtualization Climate modeling software and GIS systems Social network and its influence on changing people behavior Grid computing in making it possible to better understand the climate

science Emerging sensor-rich mobile computing devices and their use in capturing

data on micro-levels

Green ICT

Green meant environmentally sustainable at the beginning, triggered by: The exponential growth in production and use of ICT

electronics Increased concern for the environmental impact of

ICT: e-waste, energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with manufacturing and using ICT.

Sustainable ICT

Green ICT is evolving to Sustainable ICT: Increased awareness of global challenges resulted from

unsustainable development processes and growth beyond planet limits

Global recognition of “Sustainable Development” as the most strategic adaptation and mitigation method to these challenges

Increased global interest in methods and tools to assess the impact policies, programs, projects, and products of any sector on sustainability

Potential role of ICT in driving the process of sustainable innovation, realizing opportunities, and reducing risks not just within the sector itself but across all other backbone sectors: education, transportation, energy, health and infrastructure

Sustainability

Three realms: economic, social, and environmental, or the “Triple Bottom Line”

Aims at optimizing these realms instead of trading them against each other (jobs or the environment; economic growth or environmental health; development or habitat)

Insists on balance when it comes to these three key pillars of development, and makes the compelling case for the interdependency and interrelation of these realms where we can’t have one without the others

Sustainable ICT

The study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment, and achieving economic viability and improved system performance and use, while abiding by our social and ethical responsibilities. (Murugesan 2008)

Sustainability and ICT

ICT and Sustainability, Source: Forum for the Future 2008

Problems

No attention has been paid to the social impact of cloud computing as an objective that is equally critical environmental and financial impact when aiming at achieving sustainability as an over arching goal. (e.g. access and affordability of technology and workforce development and job creation ratio).

Lack of a conceptual sustainability assessment framework that works in the IT sector context and can provide a feasible and agile tool and method for a decision maker to utilize in an ever-fast changing work environment.

Lack of a “certification-like” method to assess --“certify”– cloud computing service providers based on an integrated approach to evaluating sustainability and QoS performance measures.

Performance Assessment

Sustainability Performance Assessment

Questions

What is the impact of the following variables on the sustainability assessment of cloud: Service Model: depth in the cloud Deployment Model: private vs. public vs. community

vs. hybrid Volume of Use Type of Use: government, education, public, private,

non profit

Q & A

THANK YOU