Energy-aware Internet could mean data center revolution By Carol Wilson

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Aug 24 2009) Networking

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   A new study from some of the big guns of technology -- MIT, Carnegie Mellon University and content delivery network Akamai – is saying that major Internet players could save up to 40% of their electricity costs by using routing that automatically sends traffic to lower-cost data centers. The study, published in the MIT Technology Review, shows how an algorithm that makes Internet routing energy-aware could save millions of dollars.

   The idea originated with MIT PhD student Asfandyar Qureshi, and led to work with Akamai and the distributed servers that are part of its CDN, supporting many large Web sites by connecting large data centers. As part of that real world test, the researchers acknowledged the fact that prices for electricity vary with seasonal changes, fluctuations in supply and demand, and price hikes. That’s why using an algorithm to constantly find the lowest-cost source of electricity at any given time would create a new, energy-aware Internet.

   This approach would also spur a wave of data center construction in areas where energy cost less on a more regular basis, and as stated in this blog before, that is more likely to be in places where energy is not just abundant and easily obtained, but also renewable. Energy-aware Internet routing could, in fact, dramatically reshape the data center landscape. It’s not going to happen tomorrow – there are some market challenges and the mechanisms needed to implement this new form of routing need to be made available, and at a cost that is reasonable.

   But given the reality that we are growing more dependent on an Internet that is increasingly dependent on massive data centers, finding a way to use power more efficiently is just the logical next step.  

   
   

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