Researchers at the University of Sydney have come up with a
mathematical model verified by software implementation that can
more than halve the energy consumption of processors in data
centres at little or no operational cost. The Energy Conscious
Scheduling algorithm (ECS) has been patented by Dr Young Choon
Leeand Professor Albert Zomaya at the university's Centre for
Distributed and High Performance Computing. Dr Lee and Professor
Zomaya are now developing an ECS prototype, with a view to
commercialising their research by 2011. Power consumption by
servers has more than doubled since 2000; estimates suggest
electricity use for servers worldwide cost about $US7.2 billion
in 2005. Companies are increasingly looking to curb these energy
costs and their ensuing greenhouse gas as demand for computing
and data storage capacities continues to grow exponentially.
"The growing popularity of cloud computing will help IT managers
reduce data centre energy costs, but more research needs to be
done before large organis