Toward sustainable data centers: a comprehensive energy management strategy

Data centers are major contributors to the emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and this contribution is expected to increase in the following years. This has encouraged the development of techniques to reduce the energy consumption and the environmental footprint of data centers. Whereas some of these techniques have succeeded to reduce the energy consumption of the hardware equipment of data centers (including IT, cooling, and power supply systems), we claim that sustainable data centers will be only possible if the problem is faced by means of a holistic approach that includes not only the aforementioned techniques but also intelligent and unifying solutions that enable a synergistic and energy-aware management of data centers. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive strategy to reduce the carbon footprint of data centers that uses the energy as a driver of their management procedures. In addition, we present a holistic management architecture for sustainable data centers that implements the aforementioned strategy, and we propose design guidelines to accomplish each step of the proposed strategy, referring to related achievements and enumerating the main challenges that must be still solved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Drawing Mind Maps

{Excerpt} Mind maps are a visual means that represent, link, and arrange concepts, themes, or tasks, with connections usually extending radially from a central topic. They are used by individuals and groups (informally and intuitively) to generate, visualize, structure, and classify these. Intelligence is a potential, and thinking is the operating skill through which it acts upon experience. Outside highly technical matters, perception is the most important part of thinking. If most errors of thinking are errors of perception—that being colored by emotions and values—thinking as a skill can be improved by practice and education. Numerous straightforward yet powerful tools encourage creativity and flexibility, and help optimize different styles of reasoning (including analyzing, integrating, planning, and problem solving). They include APC, OPV, PMI, brainstorming, lateral thinking, and mind maps. After they are mastered, these tools can be applied explicitly. We usually write notes as sentences that we break into paragraphs, lists, or bullet points. A mind map is a circular, nonlinear way of organizing information: it shows the connections between a central topic and the relative importance of the concepts, themes, or tasks that one relates to it. It can be applied by individuals and groups to generate, visualize, structure, and classify these whenever clearer thinking and improved learning will enhance performance and effectiveness

Why Do Mothers Die? The Silent Tragedy of Maternal Mortality

More than two decades after the launch of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, maternal health in many developing countries has shown little or no improvement. Year after year, more than half a million mothers continue to die in silence. The specificities of the complex cross-cutting issue only partly explain why tireless efforts have led to insufficient progress so far. While some success stories prove that results can be obtained quickly, the dissensions and deficiencies the Initiative has encountered have strongly weakened its impact. However, recent developments over the past 3 years allow us to foresee the silence will soon be broken. While advocacy begins to subsequently raise awareness, more financial means are mobilized. As a consensus on the priority interventions has finally been reached (Women Deliver conference, London, October 2007), more coordinated actions and initiatives are being developed. The strive for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals helps to create the political momentum the cause strongly needs to generate new leadership, develop and implement the adequate strategies. Sensible focus on resources and structure as well as innovative management will be crucial in that process

iTETRIS: An Integrated Wireless and Traffic Platform for Real-Time Road Traffic Management Solutions

Wireless vehicular cooperative systems have been identified as an attractive solution to improve road traffic management, thereby contributing to the European goal of safer, cleaner, and more efficient and sustainable traffic solutions. V2V-V2I communication technologies can improve traffic management through real-time exchange of data among vehicles and with road infrastructure. It is also of great importance to investigate the adequate combination of V2V and V2I technologies to ensure the continuous and costefficient operation of traffic management solutions based on wireless vehicular cooperative solutions. However, to adequately design and optimize these communication protocols and analyze the potential of wireless vehicular cooperative systems to improve road traffic management, adequate testbeds and field operational tests need to be conducted. Despite the potential of Field Operational Tests to get the first insights into the benefits and problems faced in the development of wireless vehicular cooperative systems, there is yet the need to evaluate in the long term and large dimension the true potential benefits of wireless vehicular cooperative systems to improve traffic efficiency. To this aim, iTETRIS is devoted to the development of advanced tools coupling traffic and wireless communication simulators

Investigating Decision Support Techniques for Automating Cloud Service Selection

The compass of Cloud infrastructure services advances steadily leaving users in the agony of choice. To be able to select the best mix of service offering from an abundance of possibilities, users must consider complex dependencies and heterogeneous sets of criteria. Therefore, we present a PhD thesis proposal on investigating an intelligent decision support system for selecting Cloud based infrastructure services (e.g. storage, network, CPU).Comment: Accepted by IEEE Cloudcom 2012 - PhD consortium trac