The Internet has, by now, become an instrument we habitually resort to at work and in our free time. However, maybe we all ignore the fact that also the 'net' pollutes. Just think that servers of a data centre (like 'Google' for example) produce a pollution level comparable to that of a SUV; and that the impact on world CO2 production by ITC services and apparatuses in 2007 was estimated as being 2% - a percentage that corresponds to an absolute production value of CO2 equal to 0.8 billion tonnes.
With the aim of affronting such a problem some researchers from the Telecommunication Networks Research Group from the Department of I.T. Engineering at the University of Pisa have focussed their own activities on research into the reduction of energy consumption in the ICT sector, and, in particular, in the area of research relating to fixed and mobile telecommunication networks.
Their work consists of intense experimental activity carried out in the telecommunication network research laboratories at the Engineering Department aimed at the study of energy consumption of network apparatuses (commercial and prototype) to vary their functioning conditions. The objective is optimisation of resources and energy consumption, starting out with an awareness of traffic load conditions. In this scenario the work carried out by this Pisan research group is characterised by different fundamental aspects, among which is dealing with the topic of routing of network traffic while co-jointly considering the problem of energy consumption reduction.
During the last 'International Workshop on Green Communications' held at Kyoto last June the 'Best Paper Award' was presented to this group of Pisan researchers by the 'I.E.E.E.' (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) for their article entitled: 'Energy aware routing based on energy characterisation of devices: solutions and analysis' in which the authors Rosario G. Garroppo, Stefano Giordano, Gianfranco Nencioni (PhD student) and Michele Pagano gave the preliminary results of their work.
This is yet further recognition for this research group which is rated high nationally for having worked in the 'network functionality design' sector, while continuously keeping theoretical and simulative activities inseparable from experimental ones.
This work is to be applied to the activities of a project called 'E.F.F.I.C.I.E.N.T.' (Energy eFFIcient teChnologIEs for the Networks of Tomorrow) whose University of Pisa coordinator is Professor Michele Pagano. The project is financed by the 'Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research' through 'the Italian National Interest Research Projects Selection Notice Procedure.'