Sustainable Cloud Computing: Foundations and Future Directions

Major cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon rely heavily on datacenters to support the ever-increasing demand for their computational and application services. However, the financial and carbon footprint related costs of running such large infrastructure negatively impacts the sustainability of cloud services. Most of existing efforts primarily focus on minimizing the energy consumption of servers. In this paper, we devise a conceptual model and practical design guidelines for holistic management of all resources (including servers, networks, storage, cooling systems) to improve the energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprints in Cloud Data Centers (CDCs). Furthermore, we discuss the intertwined relationship between energy and reliability for sustainable cloud computing, where we highlight the associated research issues. Finally, we propose a set of future research directions in the field and setup grounds for further practical developments.