Sustainable Location Selection of Data Centers: Developing a Multi-Criteria Set-Covering Decision-Making Methodology

In this paper, a multi-criteria set-covering methodology is proposed to select suitable locations for a set of data centers. First, a framework of criteria, with social, economic and environmental dimensions, is presented. The framework is used to calculate the suitability of potential data center locations in Iran. To that end, a sample of specialists in Iran was asked to take part in an online questionnaire, based on best-worst method (BWM), to determine the weight of the criteria included in the proposed framework, after which a number of potential locations are evaluated on the basis of the criteria. The proposed model is evaluated under a number of settings. Using the proposed multi-criteria set-covering model, not only the utility of candidate places is evaluated by sustainability criteria but also all service applicants are covered by at least one data center with a specific coverage radius.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Transport and Logistic