A Taxonomy and Survey of Green Data Centers

An issue of great concern as it relates to global warming is power consumption and efficient use of computers especially in large data centers. Green computing is emerging as a solution to this problem as evidenced by a recent boom in publications in this area including those articles published between 2009 and 2014. Here we classify these recent publications by subject, fields of application, and recommended techniques and further categorize them according to environmental, timing, algorithms, and other aspects. We compare and analyze proposed green computing solutions in terms of features like server system power management, green cloud computing employing various types of energy efficient algorithms, data center cooling systems, and processor architecture. We explore future directions in the field and present a guideline for those interested in green computing.