1 2 Environmental-aware virtual data center network 3 Kim Khoa Nguyen a,⇑ , Mohamed Cheriet a , Mathieu Lemay b , Victor Reijs c , Andrew Mackarel c , 4 Alin Pastrama d 5 a Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering, Ecole de Technologie Superieure, University of Quebec, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 6 b Inocybe Technologies Inc., Gatineau, Quebec, Canada 7 c HEAnet Ltd., Dublin, Ireland 8 d NORDUnet, Kastrup, Denmark 9 11 article info 12 Article history: 13 Received 15 September 2011 14 Received in revised form 21 February 2012 15 Accepted 20 March 2012 16 Available online xxxx 17 Keywords: 18 GreenStar Network 19 Mantychore FP7 20 Green ICT 21 Virtual data center 22 Neutral carbon network 23 24 abstract 25 Cloud computing services have recently become a ubiquitous service delivery model, cov- 26 ering a wide range of applications from personal file sharing to being an enterprise data 27 warehouse. Building green data center networks providing cloud computing services is 28 an emerging trend in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, 29 because of Global Warming and the potential GHG emissions resulting from cloud services. 30 As one of the first worldwide initiatives provisioning ICT services entirely based on renew- 31 able energy such as solar, wind and hydroelectricity across Canada and around the world, 32 the GreenStar Network (GSN) was developed to dynamically transport user services to be 33 processed in data centers built in proximity to green energy sources, reducing Greenhouse 34 Gas (GHG) emissions of ICT equipments. Regarding the current approach, which focuses 35 mainly in reducing energy consumption at the micro-level through energy efficiency 36 improvements, the overall energy consumption will eventually increase due to the growing 37 demand from new services and users, resulting in an increase in GHG emissions. Based on 38 the cooperation between Mantychore FP7 and the GSN, our approach is, therefore, much 39 broader and more appropriate because it focuses on GHG emission reductions at the 40 macro-level. This article presents some outcomes of our implementation of such a network 41 model, which spans multiple green nodes in Canada, Europe and the USA. The network 42 provides cloud computing services based on dynamic provision of network slices through 43 relocation of virtual data centers. 44 � 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 45 46 47 1. Introduction 48 Nowadays, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is 49 becoming one of the most challenging research topics in 50 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) because 51 of the alarming growth of indirect GHG emissions resulting 52 from the overwhelming use of ICT electrical devices [1]. 53 The current approach when dealing with the ICT GHG 54 problem is improving energy efficiency, aimed at reducing 55 energy consumption at the micro level. Research projects 56 following this direction have focused on micro-processor 57 design, computer design, power-on-demand architectures 58 and virtual machine consolidation techniques. However, 59 a micro-level energy efficiency approach will likely lead 60 to an overall increase in energy consumption due to the 61 Khazzoom–Brookes postulate (also known as Jevons para- 62 dox) [2], which states that ‘‘energy efficiency improvements 63 that, on the broadest considerations, are economically 64 justified at the micro level, lead to higher levels of energy 65 consumption at the macro level’’. Therefore, we believe that 66 reducing GHG emissions at the macro level is a more 67 appropriate solution. Large ICT companies, like Microsoft 68 which consumes up to 27MW of energy at any given time 69 [1], have built their data centers near green power sources. 70 Unfortunately, many computing centers are not so close to 1389-1286/$ - see front matter � 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2012.03.008 ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: kim.nguyen@synchromedia.ca (K.K. Nguyen). Q1 Computer Networks xxx (2012) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Computer Networks journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comnet COMPNW 4730 No. of Pages 14, Model 3G 3 April 2012 Please cite this article in press as: K.K. Nguyen et al., Environmental-aware virtual data center network, Comput. Netw. (2012), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2012.03.008