Background Information

The evolution of the Internet is now intimately entwined with national and international economic growth. Developed economies are experiencing a concerted push toward nation-wide access to broadband servces via the Internet [1] and many policy makers consider the Internet a key contributor to economic growth in developing nations [2], [3].

This growth in the physical extent of the Internet supports continued expansion of the services provided via the Internet. New broadband services are continually being introduced onto the Internet. Continued expansion in the reach and usage of the Internet will result in exponential growth of Internet traffic for the foreseeable future [4], [5].

The Internet and ICT have often been seen as providing multiple avenues for reducing the environmental impact of society on the planet's resources [6], [7]. Widely cited examples include replacing air travel with video conferencing, using tele-work to avoid the need for commuting or driving to work and using the Internet to remotely monitor and control the power consumption of electronic equipment. However, these benefits rely on the energy consumption of the Internet itself not becoming a problem [6].

If the current rate of growth of the Internet continues without due consideration of its energy consumption then several significant constraints will emerge. In particular, the Internet will suffer what we call an "energy bottleneck" The energy bottleneck refers to problems in providing the electricity needed to power the equipment used by the Internet.

The Internet has dramatically evolved from providing simple functions such as e-mail, file transfer and information storage. Today the Internet does much more. Examples of the enhanced functionality of the Internet today include: e-commerce, banking, information indexing, retrieval and processing. The scope of the information being handled by the Internet has also expanded from simple text to complex image and multimedia content.

This functionality is delivered by specialised equipment in large facilities devoted to storage and processing of huge volumes of data. These facilities house many hundreds of computers which provide information to customers scattered around the world. Users access these services via the Internet which provides transparent routing and transport of their request to appropriate data centres which are located around the globe.

These data centres consume large amounts of energy and, given the volumes of data are doubling annually; the energy consumption within these centres is becoming significant on a national scale . Companies such as Google, Cisco Systems, Intel and many more now consider energy consumption of ICT equipment is a major issue requiring immediate attention [8,9,10,11].

The facilities that provide Internet services and content must be supplied with significant amounts of electrical power to both operate the equipment as well as deal with the heat the equipment generates [12]. The provision and removal of this energy is already a major issue for many companies.

If the energy bottleneck problem is not resolved, future growth of the Internet may be retarded. This could negatively impact social and economic developments that are reliant upon the Internet.

The aim of this Symposium is to develop our understanding of the power demands of the Internet and ICT. This understanding can then be used to devise methods for improving the power efficiency of the Internet and associated equipment as its physical size and information capacity increases.

There is no doubt that the impact of human activity on the environment is now a crucial social, political and technological issue for the entire planet and all its occupants.

As nations and organisations increase their reliance on information, telecommunications and Internet, constraints to the growth of the Internet is a potential sleeping giant. The Symposium on Sustainability of the Internet and ICT provides a timely opportunity to hear from industry experts in this field.

Contact:

Kerry Hinton, ph (03) 83443809, email k.hinton@ee.unimelb.edu.au