Title: Virtualised load management algorithm to reduce CO₂ emissions in the data centre industry

Authors: Mueen Uddin; Jamshed Memon; Mohd Zaidi Abd Rozan; Raed Alsaqour; Amjad Rehman

Addresses: Department of Information Systems, Kulliah of Information Communication Technology, International Islamic University Malaysia, P.O. Box 10, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, 81310, Malaysia ' Department of Information Systems, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, 81310, Malaysia ' Department of Information Systems, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, 81310, Malaysia ' School of Computer Science, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, 43600, Selangor, Malaysia ' MIS Department, College of Business Administration, Salman Bin Abdul Aziz University Alkharj, P.O. Box: 11942, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract: The environmental footprint of ICT continues to increase. Data centres are key contributors of greenhouse gas emissions that pollute the environment and cause global warming. All data centres are overwhelmed with numerous servers as the major components of processing. These servers and other equipment consume high amounts of power, thereby emitting CO₂. In an average server environment, 30% of the servers are 'dead' and only consume energy, but such servers are not properly utilised, in which their utilisation ratios range from 5% to 10%. This paper proposes a new algorithm to manage and categorise the workload of different underutilised volume servers properly to increase their utilisation capacity. The proposed algorithm helps apply server consolidation methodology and increases the utilisation ratio of underutilised servers by up to 50%, thereby saving high amounts of power and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 88%.

Keywords: server virtualisation; greenhouse gases; GHG emisisons; server consolidation; workload management; energy efficiency; data centres; global warming; virtualised load management; CO2; carbon dioxide; carbon emissions; environmental footprint; ICT; carbon footprint; server utilisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2015.067413

International Journal of Global Warming, 2015 Vol.7 No.1, pp.3 - 20

Received: 14 Jan 2013
Accepted: 17 Mar 2013
Published online: 11 Feb 2015 *

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