Awareness of Sustainability, Green IT, and Cloud Computing in Indian Organisations

This chapter examines the level of awareness that organizations in India have of the concepts, strengths and benefits of sustainability, green IT and cloud computing. Very few research papers have examined the sustainability, green IT awareness and cloud computing issues in India, and it has become necessary to ascertain just where Indian organizations stand when it comes to these concerns. Before determining whether these organisations are progressing towards sustainability, green IT and cloud computing, it is first necessary to determine whether, and to what extent, they are aware of these concepts. This research is to obtain answers, which hopefully will be a first step in a shift towards sustainability and green IT, via an online survey. Seventy-five respondents from public and private Indian organizations participated in this survey and confirmed that cloud computing is efficient, flexible and easy to maintain, although security and privacy are major concerns for Indian organizations.

Environmental Assessment of Hybrid Broadband Satellite Systems

This chapter describes the environmental assessment of hybrid broadband satellite systems using the latest lifecycle analysis (LCA) techniques. The BATS (Broadband Access via integrated Terrestrial and Satellite systems) project has based its assessments on the GHG Protocol approach, with the ETSI LCA and ITU-T L.1400 methodology series used to provide more detailed guidance where this is needed. This assessment has shown that it is possible to employ cut off rules and approximations to reduce the cost or length of an assessment and still provide useful results. The assessment has shown that, using current technology for the IUG and satellite modem, the carbon footprint of a hybrid broadband satellite network can be comparable with that of a terrestrial (fixed or mobile) network for an equivalent level of service when the use of low-power states are considered. The implementation of these states in future commercial systems should be explored. Finally ways are suggested to reduce the environmental impact of hybrid broadband satellite systems, in particular by reducing energy (power) consumption during the use stage. Key issues include how to compare the energy efficiency of a hybrid broadband satellite network with other methods of broadband delivery, how to accurately assess the carbon embodied during the production of the equipment, and how to use low-power modes to reduce energy consumption without affecting the response time or quality of experience (QoE).

Sustainable Service-Strategic Perspectives

This chapter provides a strategic perspective on “Green ICT”, or “Sustainable Service”. It argues that strategy and sustainability are inextricably linked, and that a company that does not build sustainability into the heart of its strategy is a company that will not be sustainable in the unstable world of climate change and scarce resources. It proposes that ICT Service Providers not only become sustainable themselves, but also provide innovative services that can open up opportunities for companies in all industries to develop and implement their strategic sustainability agenda through the use of ICT. It defines five key aspects of a sustainable organisation: beyond reducing carbon emissions and recycling, a sustainable company, in both senses of the word, also needs to become antifragile, transparent and fundamentally social (rather than just socially conscious). For each aspect, it provides example of how this has, or could be done. The author concludes that unless business and governments react urgently and comprehensively in each of these five aspects, there may not be a planet to do business on in our children's lifetime.

An Agent-Based Model for Awareness-Based Sustainability

This chapter discusses the effects of social interaction on collective behavior regarding the reduction of limited-resource consumption. Our working hypothesis is that key societal and psychological mechanisms leading to sustainable lifestyles can be enabled by ICT tools. We envision tools supporting social norms, i.e. rules governing an individual's by social sanctions that encourage sustainable behavior on the part of user and consumers. As enabling technology we identify smart metering systems that allows users to compare their consumption patterns with the ones of other consumers, as well as to dynamically re-define and share their personal reduction goals. We present an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to explore the role of awareness in the consumption of a scarce resource. Our agents represent households that use a resource – e.g. energy or water – whose consumption has to be reduced. Agents influence each other; such influence improves their awareness that, in turn, impacts on resource consumption.

Integrating Web 2.0 and RESTful Web Services in Enterprise Grids

The integration of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and grid computing has been gaining momentum since the early 2000s. Most of the SOA-based grid implementations have been created using the lingua franca of the web services, namely SOAP, XML-formatted, message-based services. Although this technology provides advanced features such as security, transactions, reliability and workflow, these features are not always used in grid implementations. Adding these sophisticated features to the technology stack when they are not needed or used makes the implementations difficult and tedious for implementers. Web 2.0 and REST offer a set of techniques and tools that results in a paradigm shift in the web and enterprise applications. This chapter discusses the integration of Web 2.0 and RESTful web services into grid implementations. The suggested techniques and technologies alongside the proposed architecture will be discussed. Moreover, this chapter will explain how this model is useful and greener.

Cloud Carbon Abatement

In this chapter, we use a scenario-based approach to present the real opportunities for carbon abatement arising from the use of cloud services, but also to identify the dangerous misconceptions that could undermine their energy and carbon saving potential. In particular, we emphasise the key and often forgotten fact that improving energy efficiency does not necessarily amount to curbing Green House Gases (GHG) emissions. Making a clear distinction between reduced energy consumption and a lighter carbon footprint is of particular importance in the context of cloud services because of their global nature and the huge differences in the carbon intensity of electricity generation between countries. We also present evidence that not all businesses or services are equal with respect to the carbon abatement potential of a cloud-based alternative, with “low-tech” small and medium enterprises often offering the best prospects.

The Influence of Culture on the Adoption of Green IT

This chapter addresses the impact of organizational culture on the adoption of Green IT initiatives. We begin by exploring organizational culture and consider the nature of culture within the IT sector. An analysis of the effect of culture on sustainable use of IT is presented using Cameron and Quinn's Competing Values Framework as a tool to explore organizational culture. A major theme of this Chapter is the use of choice architectures to ‘nudge' individuals in particular directions with a focus on adopting green IT policies. Other themes explored are the roles social media play in promoting green IT and the impact of culture on the use of tools which deliver green IT incuding cloud computing and context-aware systems. We consider the impact of globalization. Key recommendations for working with culture to support the adoption of green IT are provided.

Green Specifications

Green specifications provide a foundation for reducing the environmental impact of computing applications and improving the consumption behavior of users by providing a clear and precise specification of the environmental impact of specific services. They can either be used to specify the actual behavior and environmental impact of existing services or to define the requirements that a to-be-built service must fulfill. Green specifications describe the properties of a service from distinct viewpoints such as a structural viewpoint which describes the data types and external components that the service uses, a functional viewpoint which describes the effects of the service's operations using pre- and post- conditions and a behavioral viewpoint which describes the externally visible states and transitions exhibited by the service. These are augmented with non-functional information describing the environmental properties of, or constraints on, the service. In this chapter we provide an introduction to green specifications and give a concrete example of their use to specify a Video on Demand (VoD) service.

Survey on Multi-Objective Routing Optimization in Ad Hoc Networks

The chapter presents a survey on multi-objective routing issues to solve the problem of optimal path according to resources requirement or QoS preferences especially energy conservation. In the present work, we draw the set of uniformly and not uniformly improvable routing objective, highlight dependencies between them and what are the effects of that on establishing the objectives functions and how it can contribute to energy conservation and state of art of different multi-objective routing problem resolution techniques applied in ad hoc network context. Many methods developed with different answers to these questions are present in the literature; some of them are discussed here.

Improving the Energy Efficiency of Telephone Exchanges (Switching Centers)

This chapter discusses the environmental assessment of telecommunications switching centers (telephone exchanges), based on the experience gained by Climate Associates Limited (CAL) and K8T on contracts in the UK and Ireland over the last few years. CAL has been asked to assess the energy efficiency of telephone exchanges and make recommendation on how their energy efficiency could be improved. Although we are not able to disclose details that may be commercially in confidence, this chapter draws out some general principles on the energy efficiency of telecommunications switching centers, taking into account the electricity demand of the equipment, the energy performance of the buildings housing it, the air conditioning needed to cool it, and the electrical systems used to power it, with a focus on how this could be improved. Reference is made to assessment standards such as ITU-T L.1310 Energy efficiency measurement and metrics for telecommunication network and ITU-T L.1300 Best Practices for Green Data Centers. Dr. Keith Dickerson and Dr. David Faulkner have both been active in the development of standards for environmental assessment in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) over the past 10 years and hold leadership positions in these bodies. Dr. Paul Kingston has an excellent track record in the modeling and assessment of power consumption to optimize design of the built environment. Acknowledgement is given to BT for permission to publish the results of this study. The results are based primarily on the study of a single telephone exchange and may not be valid for all exchanges of this type in the UK.