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Cloud computing involves displacing data storage and processing from the user's computer on to remote servers. It can provide users with more storage space and computing power that they can then access from anywhere in the world rather than having to connect to a single desktop or other computer with its finite resources. However, some observers have raised concerns about the increased energy demands of sustaining distributed servers and having them up and running continuously, where an individual user's laptop might be shut down when it is not in use or the resources utilization of the server is less than the lower threshold, for instance.
Now, writing in the International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence, researchers at the University of Oran in Algeria, have investigated how cloud computing systems might be optimized for energy use and to reduce their carbon footprint. Jouhra Dad and Ghalem Belalem in the Department of Computer Science at Oran explain how they have developed an algorithm to control the virtual machines running on computers in a cloud environment so that energy use of the core central processing units (CPUs) and memory capacity (RAM as opposed to hard disk storage space) can be reduced as far as possible without affecting performance overall.
Unfortunately, there is little detailed information on the algorithm itself in the article.
I suspect some Soylents have home servers which they access from within their home as well as remotely. What, if anything, do you do to reduce your energy costs?
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday September 13 2014, @06:07PM
hmm interesting. I personally don't care how they energy, so long as it doesn't effect performance...!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 13 2014, @11:00PM
This is another instance of me putting my dick into the discussion's mashed potatoes, but I agree with you in that I always thought it was silly to take into consideration the energy costs of home computing.
Of all the things that can make a real difference in savings, like eating cheaper or using less water or ever other power-related savings like not running the air conditioner all day; the consideration of power draw in a home-computing scenario is just goddamn silly -- even for a family setup with 2-3 PCs in the house.
There are scenarios when worrying about the power-draw of computing makes sense, like when you're using a mobile device on battery power or actually running a fuck-huge Beowulf cluster in your basement -- but if you're running a Beowulf cluster in an American home you can expect the DEA to kick down your door and shoot your kids and pets to death because you might have been using all that power to grow marijuana. Yes, in America, the power company alerts the authorities when you're drawing a suspicious amount of juice from the grid.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday September 14 2014, @12:45AM
You must not rely on ConEd for electricity, or live in Hawaii. ConEd charges us $0.35/kwh in NYC (Hawaii is more on the order of $0.45/kwh). My old server (Dell) cost me $30/mo. to run. My new server (Lotus) has a run-hot CPU and costs me maybe $4/mo. Scale that up for your own personal computing needs, and it makes a difference. Efficiency is good.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday September 14 2014, @12:45PM
oooh juicy! does this happen? Because I thought they used the IR camera's first...looks better on "COPS".