Computing for the future of the planet

Abstract

Digital technology is becoming an indispensable and crucial component of our lives, society and the environment. We present a framework for computing in the context of problems facing the planet. The framework has a number of goals: an optimal digital infrastructure, sensing and optimizing with a global world model, reliably predicting and reacting to our environment and providing digital alternatives to physical activities. This paper describes our vision in which data centres can scale power consumption in line with performance, run closer to the wire with reduced redundancy and behave as a 'virtual battery' dynamically using spare, or otherwise unusable, generation capacity from renewable sources. On a broader scale, we consider how global sensing might allow us to optimize our daily activities and lives. We highlight the issues and dilemmas inherent in the deployment of global sensing infrastructure and work towards our challenge of a personal energy meter as a tool for informing decisions and providing impetus for reducing the ecological footprint of our society.

Predicting the Performance of Virtual Machine Migration

“…As part of our research into Computing for the Future of the Planet we are working on a new computing framework that will automatically relocate workloads to chase surplus energy, which would otherwise be wasted [24]. Energy is a significant financial and environmental cost for datacentre operators.…”

Distributed computing for carbon footprint reduction by exploiting low-footprint energy availability

“…One of the first papers to suggest locating data centers near renewable energy sources is [14]. The primary reason given is that it is cheaper to transmit data over large distances than to transmit power.…”

The Paramountcy of Reconfigurable Computing

“…Optimization of road traffic and transport logistics. Andy Hopper even sees four levels 139 at which innovation-driven developments in computing being effective: 1) Simulation and modeling are important tools which will help predict global warming and its effects. Much more powerful computing systems are required to make the predictions better, more accurate, and relevant.…”