Virtualization in energy-efficient future home environments

Home environments promise high potential in terms of resource sharing and energy saving. More and more home computers are running on an always-on basis (e.g., media centers or file sharing clients). Such home environments have not been sufficiently analyzed regarding the possibility of aggregating home user resources in an energy-efficient way. This article describes a future home environment in which available hardware resources (e.g., CPU cycles, disk space, or network capacity) are shared energy efficiently and balanced among end users. Furthermore, the article provides an overview of different virtualization methods that are needed in future home environments to enable cooperation of home networks. Virtualization-related requirements are discussed in detail and virtualization methods and concepts are compared to each other with respect to their usability in the architecture.