A Greener Internet that Sleeps More
07/25/24 • 59 min
Host Chris Adams and guest Romain Jacob delve into the often-overlooked energy demands of networking infrastructure to discover A Greener Internet that Sleeps More. While AI and data centers usually dominate the conversation, networking still consumes significant power, comparable to the energy usage of entire countries. They discuss innovative practices to make the internet greener, such as putting networks to sleep during low usage periods and extending the life of hardware. Romain talks about his recent Hypnos paper, which won Best Paper at HotCarbon 2024. He shares his team’s award-winning research on how energy demand for networking kit powering the internet can be reduced by simply by powering down links when not in use.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:Resources:
Romain Jacob: We used to consider that energy is cheap. Energy is there. We don't need to worry too much about it. So it's just simpler to plug the thing in, assume energy is there. You can draw power as much as you want, whenever you want, for as much as you want. And it's time to get away from that.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:Resources:
- SCION Architecture [11:30]
- Environmental Impacts of Internet Technology (eimpact) [17:15]
- Why we should be intentional about the mental models we use for thinking when we think about digital sustainability | Chris Adams [18:30]
- A Sleep Study for ISP Networks: Evaluating Link Sleeping on Real World Data | Romain Jacob, Lukas Röllin and Laurent Vanbever [18:59]
- Network energy use not directly proportional to data volume: The power model approach for more reliable network energy consumption calculations | David Mytton [38:55]
- Co2.js - The Issue | The Green Web Foundation [42:57]
- Rethinking Allocation in High-Baseload Systems: A Demand-Proportional Network Electricity Intensity Metric — University of Bristol | Daniel Schien [43:53]
- Introducing Web Sustainability Guidelines | 2023 | Blog | W3C [49:31]
- Greening of Streaming [52:16]
- Network Power Zoo | ETH Zurich [54:46]
- A Primer on Optimistic UI | Imhoff
- Response Time Limits: Article by Jakob Nielsen | NN Group
- Optimistic UI Patterns for Improved Perceived Performance | Simon Hearne
- Reducing the Energy Footprint of Cellular Networks with Delay-Tolerant Users | IEEE Journals & Magazine
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow and rate on Spotify
- Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
- Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Romain Jacob: We used to consider that energy is cheap. Energy is there. We don't need to worry too much about it. So it's just simpler to plug the thing in, assume energy is there. You can draw power as much as you want, whenever you want, for as much as you want. And it's time to get away from that.
Host Chris Adams and guest Romain Jacob delve into the often-overlooked energy demands of networking infrastructure to discover A Greener Internet that Sleeps More. While AI and data centers usually dominate the conversation, networking still consumes significant power, comparable to the energy usage of entire countries. They discuss innovative practices to make the internet greener, such as putting networks to sleep during low usage periods and extending the life of hardware. Romain talks about his recent Hypnos paper, which won Best Paper at HotCarbon 2024. He shares his team’s award-winning research on how energy demand for networking kit powering the internet can be reduced by simply by powering down links when not in use.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:Resources:
Romain Jacob: We used to consider that energy is cheap. Energy is there. We don't need to worry too much about it. So it's just simpler to plug the thing in, assume energy is there. You can draw power as much as you want, whenever you want, for as much as you want. And it's time to get away from that.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:Resources:
- SCION Architecture [11:30]
- Environmental Impacts of Internet Technology (eimpact) [17:15]
- Why we should be intentional about the mental models we use for thinking when we think about digital sustainability | Chris Adams [18:30]
- A Sleep Study for ISP Networks: Evaluating Link Sleeping on Real World Data | Romain Jacob, Lukas Röllin and Laurent Vanbever [18:59]
- Network energy use not directly proportional to data volume: The power model approach for more reliable network energy consumption calculations | David Mytton [38:55]
- Co2.js - The Issue | The Green Web Foundation [42:57]
- Rethinking Allocation in High-Baseload Systems: A Demand-Proportional Network Electricity Intensity Metric — University of Bristol | Daniel Schien [43:53]
- Introducing Web Sustainability Guidelines | 2023 | Blog | W3C [49:31]
- Greening of Streaming [52:16]
- Network Power Zoo | ETH Zurich [54:46]
- A Primer on Optimistic UI | Imhoff
- Response Time Limits: Article by Jakob Nielsen | NN Group
- Optimistic UI Patterns for Improved Perceived Performance | Simon Hearne
- Reducing the Energy Footprint of Cellular Networks with Delay-Tolerant Users | IEEE Journals & Magazine
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow and rate on Spotify
- Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
- Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Romain Jacob: We used to consider that energy is cheap. Energy is there. We don't need to worry too much about it. So it's just simpler to plug the thing in, assume energy is there. You can draw power as much as you want, whenever you want, for as much as you want. And it's time to get away from that.
Previous Episode
The Week in Green Software: Tackling the Energy Challenges of AI
Producer Chris Skipper is joined by guests Marjolein Pordon of ladylowcode.com fame and Andri Johnston from Cambridge University Press & Assessment to discuss the sustainability challenges associated with AI's increasing energy demands and the role of data centers in addressing these challenges. Marjolein emphasizes the need for sustainable infrastructure and the potential synergy between low-code platforms and AI. Andri shares insights from CUP&A's efforts to understand and mitigate digital carbon emissions, highlighting the importance of transparency and accurate reporting from cloud service providers like AWS.
Learn more about our people:
- AI energy demand is ruining Google's environmental goals [06:06]
- How AWS helps reduce carbon footprint of AI workloads [12:58]
- Roundtable: Data Center Sustainability Plays for the AI Era [23:33]
- AI is starving for more power. Can quantum computing help? – Computerworld [34:28]
- Metatalent.ai on LinkedIn: "Thought Leadership Webinar For AI: Your Replacement, or Your Advantage?" [40:10]
- Climate-Conscious Websites for a More Sustainable Net [40:38]
- AI water footprint suggests that large language models are thirsty [24:15]
- Underwater data center voyage hits the doldrums - Verdict [26:16]
- How data centers at public pools can keep swimmers warm - The Verge [26:36]
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow and rate on Spotify
- Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
- Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Next Episode
Green Software with Gaël Amongst the Whales
TWiGS host Chris Adams is joined once again by Gaël Duez to discuss the latest news in green software around AI. They discuss insights from recent reports by Google, Meta, and Amazon, as well as looking at the implementation of the GSF’s Software Carbon Intensity metric. Similarly, the conversation touches on the distribution of renewable energies and the use of different means of measuring carbon in reporting, and how this can affect the behavior of consumers and organizations alike. Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the latest in green software.
Learn more about our people:
- Green Coding AI [05:02]
- Sustainability: How Did Amazon, Azure, Google Perform in 2023? - The New Stack [19:33]
- Big Tech’s bid to rewrite the rules on net zero [34:20]
- Can AWS really reduce the carbon footprint of AI workloads by 99% or is it 'greenwashing'? [43:36]
- Are the CO2 emission reductions promised by cloud providers realistic ? | Boavizta [44:44]
- Mark Butcher on LinkedIn: #sustainability #scope2 | 58 comments [45:09]
- AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric call for greater supplier transparency on Scope 3 emissions
- Green IO London 2024 [1:01:15]
- CNCF Cloud Native Sustainability Week 2024 [1:05:48]
- The Week in Green Software: Complex Carbon Accounting with Gaël Duez [03:54]
- EcoLogits tracks the energy consumption and environmental footprint of using generative AI models through APIs. [06:43]
- https://hotcarbon.org/assets/2024/pdf/hotcarbon24-final109.pdf [11:02]
- Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone | MIT Technology Review [15:21]
- Energy Star Ratings for AI Models [15:53]
- http://CodeCarbon.io [17:02]
- https://github.com/mrchrisadams/djangocon-eu-2024-workshop/issues/1
- Marketplace · GitHub [18:40]
- Why have Irish energy companies been told to drop 'misleading' 100% renewable claims? | Euronews [30:24]
- RE100 TECHNICAL CRITERIA [31:04]
- https://github.com/Green-Software-Foundation/real-time-cloud/issues/59 [31:42]
- ISO/IEC 21031:2024 - Information technology — Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) specification
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
Select type & size
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/environment-variables-321092/a-greener-internet-that-sleeps-more-63631882"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to a greener internet that sleeps more on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy