8th National Conference in Education –

Technical & Vocational Education and Training (CiE-TVET) 2018

Greener Networking with Cloud Computing –

application at Klang Community College
Ts. Rahizam Bin Karima, Azhar Bin Kamardinb

a
Computer Systems & Networking Unit, Klang Community College, Selangor Malaysia; rahizamkarim@gmail.com
b
Information & Technology Unit, Gerik Community College, Perak Malaysia; azhar.kamardin@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This document presents a discussion on Cloud computing that can resulting a better
environment in world of computing that practicing Greener networking solution. Cloud computing is
just one example in Green Computing whereas there are many more ways such as Virtualization,
Grid computing, Power optimization, Data Centre energy efficiency, Materials recycling and
Telecommuting. With the same objectives to reduce paper waste, carbon footprint, carbon dioxide
(CO2) gas emission and global warming caused by the green house, a cloud storage project with the
code named “KKKlang-Cloud01” in Klang Community College (KK Klang) is the good way to start
with. This initiative is a model in protecting out Mother Nature save for another decades in the future.

INTRODUCTION

Green computing in networking is a global term and plays an important role due to
environmental value implies to the computing technology. Green computing in networking is the
concept of learn and apply in using computing resources proficiently. The main purpose of such an
initiative is to cater for the triple bottom lines which are "People, Planet, and Profit" (hSenid, 2010).
The goals are similar to green chemistry namely to lessen the use of harmful resources; make best
use of power efficiency during the product's lifetime; and encourage to recycle or to use
biodegradability of redundant products. Current information technology or IT systems and
technology depends upon a complicated blend of human, networks and devices; as such, a green
computing inventiveness must be systemic in nature, and address increasingly complicated
problems.
Green computing is not new to the business. It started since 90’s, but since last five to seven
years back it becomes so hot in the market. As per technology, spending reductions on equipment,
energy, and even tax breaks and other financial incentives make green computing that much more
practical and attractive for companies to adopt. (Arron Fu, CTO, 2018)
Regulations established to address climate change have forced businesses to change their
ways and become environmentally friendly.
As a result, new economic opportunities exist. Companies can enter the market and grow
revenue and job growth by supplying or servicing energy efficient equipment, or developing green
technology, just as a few examples.
Green computing in networking is not just about forfeiting all the hardware that already been
set up; they can actually contribute to income to a company or any organizations. Turning to green
solution had an important profit prospect through total saving and energy optimization.

1. Definition of Green Networking

There are many definition of green networking stated by the books, reports and
websites. Tech.target.com says:
 “Green networking is the practice of consolidating devices, relying more on
telecommuting and videoconferencing, and using virtualization to reduce power
consumption across the network”. (TechTarget, 2008)

But generally, Green Networking is the ritual of joining devices, which binding to more
telecommuting devices and using virtualization to reduce power depletion across the network
operationally; in addition to gain total income. Many companies have been told to cut the
energy consumption in order to make profit from saving process. There is no straight definition
on Green Networking because of a number of aspects and it is still in the early stages. It
seems that there are many interrelated, but different definitions fluctuating throughout the
Internet. Many of them emphasis on a fixed of procedures and methods designed to make
datacentres and network more efficient. This means sinking the power and cooling obligatory.
I have read that the day-to-day power consumption of a usual datacentre is equal to the
monthly power used of thousands of households.

2. Why the world and KK Klang need Green Networking?

The worldwide economic recession and the fluctuations in energy prices accentuate
the fiscal need for organizations to recognize and be able to handle their consumption of power
used as a crucial part of their on-going business plan. In addition, shifting prospects from an
extensive diversity of stakeholders, both private and public institutions, as to what effected to
corporate responsibility, has radically improved the need for organizations to appreciate and
interconnect their efforts to reduce social and environmental influences related to their
practices and merchandises
The need for energy efficiency in networking is very obligatory. The wonder of netbooks
(e-books/e-library), communication devices such as smartphone and networked computers,
home audio/video entertainment systems, and other linked devices is raising hand-in-hand
with dependence on available networks. This phenomenon is fashionable trend at home and
at work.
With the plea for network connectivity on the upswing, more and more networking
hardware is being fitted to manage the load. And while this growing pattern is a bonus to many
people of us who trying to stay connected, it will also overpriced in terms of energy and
unnecessary carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. If we not pay the attention on the issue, this
situation will lead to exponential growths in discharges of unwanted gasses and energy
consumption, on the order of six per cent yearly. (Lanzisera, Nordman, & Brown, 2010)

3. Point Factor of Green is Reducing Energy Consumption

Reducing power usage is a critical goal for many organizations that want to increase
their profit and reduce the cost. According to IDC Green IT Survey (Ingle & Nebuloni, 2008),
as proved by the truth that when request to name the main KPIs in green project, respondents
puts the reduction in energy consumption in the first position.
In total, Information Communication and Technologies (ICTs) could deliver roughly 7.8
GtCO2e of emissions reserves in 2020. This represents 15% of emissions in 2020 based on
Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU) approximation. It characterizes a important percentage of the
decreases below 1990 points that scientists and economists recommend by 2020 to elude
dangerous climate change (Stern, 2008).
In economic terms, the ICT-enabled energy efficiency translates into approximately £600
billion ($946.5 billion (Currency Conversions, 2008) of cost savings.

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 3.1. Power and carbon emission

The global computing industry is in jeopardy towards its contribution to global

warming. ICT contributed three per cent of energy consumption in the world. The computing
sector has come under growing study over energy depletion and the carbon discharges of
data centres, in specific, as the debate over emissions extends outside the traditional targets
like coal plants. It contributes two per cent (2%) of global carbon emissions (Jukwey, Gerard,
& Master, 2009). The computing sector will increase its carbon emissions by 6 per cent a
year, because of unparalleled demand by consumers for computing hardware, software and
services (Jukwey, Gerard, & Master, 2009). However, the green initiatives solutions by
technology companies are still rather new and do not target relatively uneconomical CO 2
emitting data centres.

4. Why Green is so important to the Computing Industry?

4.1. Reducing cost of operation

The main purpose of going green is to save money or reducing cost from the
operation of the company. Reducing cost will increase profit in the long term. That’s why
many personnel including the term of ‘Green Technology in their contract before purchasing
computing devices.

4.2. Reduce environmental impact

4.2.1. Carbon foot print

A carbon footprint is a degree of the impact of our activities has on the

environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse
gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity,
heating and transportation etc. (CarbonFootPrint, 2010)
A carbon footprint is the whole set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions
caused by an organization, event or product. It is frequently stated in terms of the
amount of carbon dioxide, or it’s comparable of other GHGs, emitted. (Wikipedia,
2010)
How this carbon footprint related to the high-speed networking environment?
Most of datacenters in the world used large energy that coming from coal burning.
This huge datacenters like Google.com (36 data centers – data provided by
google.com) and FaceBook.com (350 million users – see more in case scenario;
Facebook vs. Yahoo) used a lot of energy for their thousands of servers in order to
provide services and applications to millions of users all over the world. Producing
high-speed data need huge capability for processing power. To produce this massive
kind of power needed by the computing industry from coal or fossil burning desires a
lot of sources from coal supply. Coal-fired power station caused emission of gasses
including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide into the air. These acidic
gasses can lead to environmental hazards.

4.2.2. Case Scenario: Facebook vs. Yahoo scenario

Facebook developing a new data center in Oregon and dedicated to an energy

provider with PacifiCorp, a coal-fired power station, where the company is the biggest
course of greenhouse gas producer back in United States (GreenPeace.org, 2010).
Facebook is facing the same challenges that other huge scale cloud computing
organization data centers is dealing with, where trying to have a cheapest electricity
rate from coal burning power plant.
Different story to search engine giant Yahoo.com, they chose to develop data
center outside New York skirt, where they had an energy powered by hydroelectric
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 power service provider and brilliantly decreasing its carbon footprint.
(GreenPeace.org, 2010)
In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI)
issued SMART 2020: permitting the low carbon reduced in the information era. (GeSI
info@gesi.org, 2008) The study emphasized the substantial and quickly growing
footprint of the ICT business and predicted that because of the speedy economic
growth in places like China and India, among other causes, plea for ICT services will
multiply by 2020. (GreenPeace.org, 2010)

From the article in SMART 2020 also found that:

PC ownership will multiply in the middle of 2007 and 2020 to 4 billion devices,
and emissions will twice over the similar period, with notebooks passing desktops as
the central cause of worldwide ICT emissions (22%).
Mobile phone tenure will nearly twice to approximately 5 billion accounts by 2020,
but gas releases will only rise by 4%. Broadband acceptance will triple to nearly 900
million accounts over the identical period, with emissions expanding over the entire
telecoms frame. The Smart 2020 research also completed a convincing case for ICT’s
substantial possible to bring climate and power solutions, reckoning that ICT
technologies could reduce 7.8 GtCO2 of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by
2020, a 15%reduction over business-as-usual projections. (GreenPeace.org, 2010)
From the research suggests that modernizations from the ICT business and then,
when joint with greater than before use of renewable energy can set the world on a
additional sustainable route and support to retain worldwide temperature increase
lower than 2°C verge. (GeSI info@gesi.org, 2008)

Figure 1 Emission Forecast from Greenpeace

5. How to adapt Green Networking by using cloud computing?

5.1. Cloud computing definition

Cloud computing is Web-based handling, whereby pooled resources, software, and

information are on condition that to computers and other devices (such as PDA phones and
netbook) on request from the Internet.
Cloud computing is a model of alteration following the change from mainframe to
client–server in the initial of 1980s. Particulars are preoccupied from the users, who no

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 longer have necessity for proficiency in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the
cloud" that backings them.
Cloud computing defines a fresh supplement, consumption, and transfer model for IT
services centered on the Internet, and it characteristically contains over-the-Internet
establishment of enthusiastically scalable and repeatedly virtualized resources. It is a
byproduct and significance of the ease-of-access to distant computing places provided by
the Internet. This regularly takings the form of web-based apparatuses or applications that
consumers can access and use over a web browser as if it was a program fitted locally on
their own workstation.
The word "cloud" is used as a symbol for the Internet, created on the cloud illustration
used in the previous to characterize the telephone network, and later to show the Internet in
computer network drawings as a notion of the fundamental infrastructure it represents.
Typical cloud computing sources bring public business applications online that are retrieved
from alternative Web service or software like a Web browser, whereas the software and
facts are kept on servers. An important element of cloud computing is customization and the
formation of a user-defined involvement.
Best cloud computing arrangements comprise of services brought through common
centers and assembled on servers. Clouds frequently seem as solitary points of admittance
for consumers' computing requests. Commercial contributions are normally likely to meet
quality of service (QoS) necessities of customers, and naturally contain service level
agreements (SLAs).

5.2. Characteristics

In common, cloud computing clients do not own the actual physical infrastructure, as an
alternative avoiding capital spending by hiring usage from a third-party provider. They
consume possessions as a service and recompense only for means that they use. Many
cloud-computing offerings service of utility computing model, which is equivalent to how
traditional utility services (such as electricity) are spent, although others bill on a subscription
basis. Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power between several tenants can
expand utilization tolls, as servers are not needlessly missing idle (which can decrease costs
expressively while accumulative the rapidity of application development).

5.3. Cloud Computing Growth

Year 2010 has been publicized by countless in the ICT area as the ‘Year of the Cloud’.
Although this is probable a forecast that will be recurring in succeeding years, the entrance
of the iPad by Apple and growing in netbooks and other tablet computers, the unveiling of
Microsoft’s Azure cloud services for business, and the introduction of the Google phone and
the propagation of mobile cloud applications are convincing signs of an effort towards cloud-
based computing inside the business sector and public awareness in a way never seen
before.

5.4. Key trends in cloud-based computing

• Continued substantial growth of cloud-based computing regardless of economic

recession
• Larger consideration and evolution in arrangement of energy-efficient data centers
strategy
• Improved size and scale of data centers being constructed by major brands
(GreenPeace.org, 2010)

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6. Ways of going green with cloud computing

Here are few methods of saving the planet with green initiatives propositions and improve
efficiency with cloud computing ( Modavi, 2010):
i. Use portable devices as an alternative of desktop computers where mobile’s held back
energy and slices costs. Laptops, netbooks and smartphones consumption less energy,
are more valuable for individuals on the go, and still can attach to the Internet with no
trouble.
ii. The organization does not necessity to participate in a lot of expensive apparatus they
will not fully exploit, such as servers or several copies of software for the office. This
means a lesser amount of waste to end up in landfills.
iii. Cloud computing propositions to the company with the best way to connect with
associates, bosses and clients. They can practice emailing, used mobile devices, social
media, implementing video conferencing, web conferences or chat rooms for
communications to all. No one needs to travel to a business gatherings from long
distances just to cooperate with each other, which lessen pollution in the environment
from transportation vehicles—and decreases time consumed for traveling that could be
better spent at work.
iv. Online association and the practice of applications that run in the cloud remove the need
to send various copies of documents via mail or courier. This cuts paper and other
supplies, as well as emissions. Anybody who needs to, can access previous versions or
edits, but there’s very little need to print anything

7. Cloud Computing in KK Klang

Known as KKKlang-Cloud01 was first officiated in 2017 using a Storage Area Network
as a medium of keeping letters, memos, files, pictures, videos and others. Two services
combined together; as a file server and cloud storage access. Storage capacity at five
Terabytes (TB) and can access through computer’s file explorer (network automatic mapping)
while using in the office/college’s network, web access (https) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
while you on the go. With the number of 23 staffs/120 students of users, the storage were
divided to 4 Gigabytes (GB) preliminary for officers and 1 GB for individually for students.

Internet
Cloud access
from the internet

KKKlang-Cloud01

Cloud access
from mobile
devices

Figure 2 Network Diagram of KK Klang Cloud

Most of the users in the infrastructure use mobile devices to access the services and
these way can lessen energy usage. The combination of two services reduced the space,
electricity and money.

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 As a result of the cloud usage, we eliminate the need to send numerous copies of
documents via mail or courier. This slashes paper and other supplies. In the first year of
usage, we managed to save 30 reams of paper per year equivalent to RM450 (RM15 per
ream). In place of electricity consumption totally, we managed to cut cost of 1.5% in every
month.

Conclusion

Green computing in networking is a global term and plays an important role due to
environmental value implies to the computing technology. Many people and organizations worry
about power consumption and carbon emission that coming from computing technologies. So as
part as contribution to Mother Nature to preserve greener world, KK Klang efforts has been putting
in such as implementation of cloud computing in KKKlang-Cloud01.
Cloud computing defines a fresh supplement, consumption, and transfer model for IT
services centered on the Internet, and it characteristically contains over-the-Internet establishment
of enthusiastically scalable and repeatedly virtualized resources. The technology will reduce the
number of electronic waste from network equipment purchased cutting and solely reducing cost for
total network operation to the organization.

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