Data centres like this one are using an increasing amount of energy-in 2015, data centres worldwide used more energy that the entire United Kingdom in the same year. UAlberta computing scientist Abram Hindle argues that by billing for energy used in the cloud, customers will be able to demand more sustainable practices. Photo credit: CC
You might remember being told not to leave the lights on when you leave a room-a common sense tactic to reduce your electricity bill. But a new study by a University of Alberta computing scientist argues that the feedback of paying, and thus conserving energy, is a missing key component to how we use cloud computing services.
Abram Hindle specializes in research examining and optimizing how our computers and mobile devices consume energy-leading to longer battery life and more efficient energy usage, a topic of growing importance.
"In 2015, data centres consumed more energy worldwide than the entire United Kingdom consumed in the same year," said Hindle, author of the study and a professor in the Department of Computing Science. "That's more energy used than a nation of 65 million residents. The costs are significant."
The cloud on the horizon
Cloud servers and mobile devices alike consume energy through computation, taking in information and energy and producing new information and heat. The excess heat generated requires even more energy in the form of cooling systems to avoid hardware failure.
The cost of all that energy consumed is invisible to end-users of cloud computing services, Hindle's study says. And until customers start seeing-and paying-for that energy, there's no incentive for providers of cloud computing to make their energy usage more efficient.
"When I see my water use has skyrocketed, I check to find out why and try to mediate the costs," said Hindle. "I argue that billing end-users for the resources they are using, such as energy, will enable awareness to allow optimization, but also provide economic incentives to motivate the design of software and services that consume less energy.
"Billing end-users for energy consumed during computation educates the public, allows them to change behaviours, and even demand more efficient computation from cloud service providers."
"If you bill it, they will pay: Energy consumption in the cloud will be irrelevant until directly billed for," was published in the proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems.