Energy-efficient media content storage and distribution
Josep Grau Miró · 2013
[ANGLES] Internet is a tool that today has become indispensable in our lives. Its use has become a fact so important that this network infrastructure deployed today requires a lot of energy to make it work. Depending what you visit when you surf the Internet, it requires a certain amount of energy or another. So, for actions that only involve text, such as sending an email or read a blog without pictures the energy used to bring these bits of data is scarce due to the relatively little information is sent over the network. However, pictures and videos are watched, this transfer of bits and therefore the energy for transferring all data, greatly increase. Many content providers are now offering their programs or movies on the net. Thus, users can have the content without being tied to a schedule and choose from a variety of content from all over the world, without having to worry of install any antenna. This benefits, together with the flexibility and interactivity of the Internet has led to users and providers opt for this method. As a consequence of this, nowadays most of the data traffic on the network, which is about 65%, is due to viewing multimedia content. For this reason, and in order to calm the rise in energy demand in the network and avoid a possible systematically shutdown, in this master thesis different architectures are studied that are used for distributing the media content (related to both the storage and the transport through the network). It is also analyzed their energy efficiency and which strategies can be applied in order to save energy and consequently save money and carbon dioxide emissions. Methods that do not fall within a specific architecture and can be used in almost any architecture are also discussed. These methods relate to four basic aspects of the content distribution chain: storage, how the information that is sent is coded in order to use less energy, the transport layer and finally, how to make more efficient the devices that users use to connect their TV with the network and display content on the screen. Finally, it is analyzed the particular case of a population and which possible solutions can be applied to reduce the energy consumption of the network, without worsen image quality.