Distributed energy efficiency in future home environments

Abstract

In this paper, a new architecture for sharing resources among home environments is proposed. Our approach goes far beyond traditional systems for distributed virtualization, like PlanetLab or grid computing, as it relies on complete decentralization in a peer-to-peer (P2P) like manner and, above all, aims at energy efficiency. Energy metrics are defined, which have to be optimized by the system. The system itself uses virtualization to transparently move tasks from one home to another to optimally utilize the existing computing power. We present an overview of our proposed architecture, consisting of a middleware interconnecting computers and routers in possibly millions of homes using P2P techniques. For demonstrating the potential energy saving of distributed applications, we present an analytical model for sharing downloads, which is verified by discrete event simulation. The model represents an optimistic case without P2P overhead and fairness. The model allows to assess the upper limit of the saving potential. An enhanced version of the simulation model also shows the effect of fairness. The fairer the system gets, the less efficient it is.

Energy Consumption of Residential and Professional Switches

“…In most situations this was the case, with the noticeable exception of the Netgear switch, which shows decreasing variances and thus a violation of (6). When using our derived models for the prediction of the power consumption of a specific switch, it is necessary to observe the switched bandwidth, yielding K measurement values BW i which denote the average bandwidth spent in a small time interval dt.…”

“…The idea is to use some middleware to automatically migrate tasks (or whole virtual machines) and data to a small number of nodes, in order to increase hardware utilization. In data centers this approach is called server consolidation, but it can also be used in the realm of home ICT [6]. Since moving possibly large (several GBs) virtual machines involves some work to be done by routers and switches, it is necessary to understand and quantify the energy consumed by the involved switches and routers.…”

Energy-driven consolidation in digital home

“…In a P2P approach, i.e., no dedicated servers, tasks are deployed among multiple subsystems, sharing hardware resources [9]. But a user can refuse to share hardware resources, even if there is enough to run other tasks, limiting possible optimizations.…”

A Power-Saving Technique for the OSGi Platform

“…Most of the related studies are targeted at reducing the energy consumption for the devices connected to the server instead of for the server (system). For example, Hlacavs et al presented a distributed approach to achieve energy efficiency for future home environments/networks based on the resource sharing [25]. In [26], a home energy management system, based on a residential OSGi Gateway, is developed for reducing home energy consumption.…”