Energy Consumption of the Internet

IEEE Network, 2000

This article provides an overview of a network-based model of power consumption in Internet infrastructure. This model provides insight into how different parts of the Internet will contribute to network power as Internet access increase over time. The model shows that today the access network dominates the Internet's power consumption and, as access speeds grow, the core network routers will dominate power consumption. The power consumption of data centers and content distribution networks is dominated by the power consumption of data storage for material that is infrequently downloaded and by the transport of the data for material that is frequently downloaded. Based on the model several strategies to improve the energy efficiency of the Internet are presented.

IEEE Communications Magazine, 2014

With more and more activities taking place online concern over the environmental impact of digital services has drawn attention to the energy intensity of the network.

2014

Assessing the average energy intensity of Internet transmissions is a complex task that has been a controversial subject of discussion. Estimates published over the last decade diverge by up to four orders of magnitude — from 0.0064 kilowatt-hours per gigabyte (kWh/GB) to 136 kWh/GB. This article presents a review of the methodological approaches used so far in such assessments: i) top–down analyses based on estimates of the overall Internet energy consumption and the overall Internet traffic, whereby average energy intensity is calculated by dividing energy by traffic for a given period of time, ii) model-based approaches that model all components needed to sustain an amount of Internet traffic, and iii) bottom–up approaches based on case studies and generalization of the results. Our analysis of the existing studies shows that the large spread of results is mainly caused by two factors: a) the year of reference of the analysis, which has significant influence due to efficiency gains in electronic equipment, and b) whether end devices such as personal computers or servers are included within the system boundary or not. For an overall assessment of the energy needed to perform a specific task involving the Internet, it is necessary to account for the types of end devices needed for the task, while the energy needed for data transmission can be added based on a generic estimate of Internet energy intensity for a given year. Separating the Internet as a data transmission system from the end devices leads to more accurate models and to results that are more informative for decision makers, because end devices and the networking equipment of the Internet usually belong to different spheres of control.

IEICE Transactions on Communications

This paper summarizes recent reports on the internet's energy consumption and the internet's benefits on climate actions. It discusses energy-efficiency and the need for a common standard for evaluating the climate impact of future communication technologies and suggests a model that can be adapted to different internet applications such as streaming, online reading and downloading. The two main approaches today are based on how much data is transmitted or how much time the data is under way. The paper concludes that there is a need for a standardized method to estimate energy consumption and CO 2 emission related to internet services. This standard should include a method for energy-optimizing future networks, where every Wh will be scrutinized.

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014

Estimates of the energy intensity of the Internet diverge by several orders of magnitude. We present existing assessments and identify diverging definitions of the system boundary as the main reason for this large spread. The decision of whether or not to include end devices influences the result by 1-2 orders of magnitude. If end devices are excluded, customer premises equipment (CPE) and access networks have a dominant influence. Of less influence is the consideration of cooling equipment and other overhead, redundancy equipment, and the amplifiers in the optical fibers. We argue against the inclusion of end devices when assessing the energy intensity of the Internet, but in favor of including CPE, access networks, redundancy equipment, cooling and other overhead as well as optical fibers. We further show that the intensities of the metro and core network are best modeled as energy per data, while the intensity of CPE and access networks are best modeled as energy per time (i.e., power), making overall assessments challenging. The chapter concludes with a formula for the energy intensity of CPE and access networks. The formula is presented both in generic form as well as with concrete estimates of the average case to be used in quick assessments by practitioners. The following chapter develops a similar formula for the core and edge networks. Taken together, the two chapters provide an assessment method of the Internet's energy intensity that takes into account different modeling paradigms for different parts of the network.

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014

Environmental assessments of digital services seeking to take into account the Internet's energy footprint typically require models of the energy intensity of the Internet. Existing models have arrived at conflicting results. This has lead to increased uncertainty and reduced comparability of assessment results. We present a bottom-up model for the energy intensity of the Internet that draws from the current state of knowledge in the field and is specifically directed towards assessments of digital services. We present the numeric results and explain the application of the model in practice. Complementing the previous chapter that presented a generic approach and results for access networks and customer premise equipment, we present a model to assess the energy intensity of the core networks, yielding the result of 0.052kWh/GB.

2012

As in many scientific domains, the accuracy of results in green networking research depends on the accuracy of the underlying energy models adopted in the study. On the one hand, researchers are in agreement regarding the need for verifiability of such models. On the other hand, they have yet to agree on an effective validation methodology to quantify the reliability of the estimated results. Often, rather different estimates are gathered, via different models, for the same power figure-which holds especially true whenever large-scale networks, as opposed to individual devices, are considered. In this chapter, the authors perform a careful sensitivity analysis of a power model for the Internet core: their results show that, no matter how carefully the data upon which the power-consumption model relies is chosen and cross-verified, the uncertainty of the overall results remains disappointingly high. The authors believe that part of the solution lies in a community-wide effort, to which they offer some initial guidance that could, if not solve the issue, at least greatly improve the current situation.

Abstract—A growing body of literature (the “energy litera-ture”), from academic as well as industrial sources, is contrib-uting to knowledge about the growth of the Internet’s energy consumption. Despite a general consensus on trends, there exist significant differences in the values published as well as in the scope of the network under study. A separate body of literature (the “architecture literature”) deals with the architecture of the Internet. The architecture literature describes the various seg-ments of the Internet, ranging from the first mile to the trans-oceanic backbones that link continents. It also describes current- and next-generation architectures of these segments, with empha-sis on the first- and second-mile technologies. A rationalisation of the architecture literature is attempted. This is used to facilitate a comparison of a sample of works from the energy literature. Works in this sample forecast energy consumption of metro-area implementations built according to the current-generation archi-tecture, that presents at least two aggregation stages before the level of the network-network-interface at the service provider’s core. The rationalisation is presented as a recommendation for authors to facilitate the application of their work as the founda-tion of research directed towards controlling the Internet’s ener-gy consumption.

Journal of Industrial Ecology

In order to understand the electricity use of Internet services, it is important to have accurate estimates for the average electricity intensity of transmitting data through the Internet (measured as kilowatt-hours per gigabyte [kWh/GB]). This study identifies representative estimates for the average electricity intensity of fixed-line Internet transmission networks over time and suggests criteria for making accurate estimates in the future. Differences in system boundary, assumptions used, and year to which the data apply significantly affect such estimates. Surprisingly, methodology used is not a major source of error, as has been suggested in the past. This article derives criteria to identify accurate estimates over time and provides a new estimate of 0.06 kWh/GB for 2015. By retroactively applying our criteria to existing studies, we were able to determine that the electricity intensity of data transmission (core and fixed-line access networks) has decreased by half approximately every 2 years since 2000 (for developed countries), a rate of change comparable to that found in the efficiency of computing more generally.

Književnost u dijalogu, 2024

Ovaj rad istražuje strukturu priče "Nož sa drškom od ružinog drveta" iz zbirke Grobnica za Borisa Davidoviča Danila Kiša u svetlu teorijskih razmatranja o ulozi Jakobsonovog principa ekvivalentnosti u organizaciji poetskih i proznih tekstova. U radu se ilustruje kako Kiš koristi princip ekvivalentnosti na način koji značajno prevazilazi upotrebu lajtmotiva u narativnim tekstovima, te kako se organizacija priče približava onome što Jakobson (citirajući Džerarda Menlija Hopkinsa) naziva "neprekidnim paralelizmom" karakterističnim za poeziju, a da pritom ne preuzima druge karakteristike lirske proze. Iako ima brojne odlike detektivske priče, uključujući zločin u središtu zapleta, pitanja o krivici žrtve i neizvesnu sudbinu izvršioca, "Nož sa drškom od ružinog drveta" značenjsku složenost u najvećoj meri duguje brižljivo građenom nizu paralelizama. Pošto je na početku uveo termine teljatina i kindžal, nagoveštavajući tako temu priče, Kiš uspostavlja simbolički niz koji povezuje Mikšin zanat, dranje živog tvora, dranje astrahanske jagnjadi i smrt Hane Kšiževske kao svojevrsnog Jagnjeta Božijeg.