Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE) Centre, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AF, United Kingdom.
Environ Sci Technol. 2013 May 7;47(9):4333-40. doi: 10.1021/es3041362. Epub 2013 Apr 29.
Cloud computing is usually regarded as being energy efficient and thus emitting less greenhouse gases (GHG) than traditional forms of computing. When the energy consumption of Microsoft's cloud computing Office 365 (O365) and traditional Office 2010 (O2010) software suites were tested and modeled, some cloud services were found to consume more energy than the traditional form. The developed model in this research took into consideration the energy consumption at the three main stages of data transmission; data center, network, and end user device. Comparable products from each suite were selected and activities were defined for each product to represent a different computing type. Microsoft provided highly confidential data for the data center stage, while the networking and user device stages were measured directly. A new measurement and software apportionment approach was defined and utilized allowing the power consumption of cloud services to be directly measured for the user device stage. Results indicated that cloud computing is more energy efficient for Excel and Outlook which consumed less energy and emitted less GHG than the standalone counterpart. The power consumption of the cloud based Outlook (8%) and Excel (17%) was lower than their traditional counterparts. However, the power consumption of the cloud version of Word was 17% higher than its traditional equivalent. A third mixed access method was also measured for Word which emitted 5% more GHG than the traditional version. It is evident that cloud computing may not provide a unified way forward to reduce energy consumption and GHG. Direct conversion from the standalone package into the cloud provision platform can now consider energy and GHG emissions at the software development and cloud service design stage using the methods described in this research.
云计算通常被认为是节能的，因此比传统形式的计算排放更少的温室气体（GHG）。当测试和建模微软云计算 Office 365（O365）和传统 Office 2010（O2010）软件套件的能耗时，发现一些云服务比传统形式消耗更多的能源。本研究开发的模型考虑了数据传输的三个主要阶段的数据中心、网络和最终用户设备的能耗。从每个套件中选择了可比的产品，并为每个产品定义了活动，以代表不同的计算类型。微软为数据中心阶段提供了高度机密的数据，而网络和用户设备阶段则直接进行了测量。定义并利用了一种新的测量和软件分配方法，允许直接测量用户设备阶段的云服务的功耗。结果表明，对于 Excel 和 Outlook，云计算的效率更高，因为它们的能耗和 GHG 排放量低于独立版本。基于云的 Outlook（8%）和 Excel（17%）的功耗低于其传统版本。然而，Word 的云版本的功耗比其传统等效版本高 17%。还对 Word 的混合访问方法进行了测量，其 GHG 排放量比传统版本高 5%。显然，云计算可能无法提供一种统一的方法来减少能源消耗和 GHG 排放。现在，可以使用本研究中描述的方法，在软件开发和云服务设计阶段直接从独立软件包转换到云计算提供平台，考虑能源和 GHG 排放。
