Abstract
Electronic learning or e-learning is the use of technology to enable learners to learn from anywhere and anytime. The delivery involves the use of electronic devices in some way to make available learning contents. Today, e-learning has drastically changed the educational environment. The e-learning methodology is a good example of green computing. Green computing refers to the study and practice of using computing resources in an eco-friendly manner. It is the practice of using computing resources in an energy efficient and environmentally friendly manner. In order to reduce costs, education services can be provided using cloud technology. The green cloud computing solutions save energy, reduce operational costs, and reduce carbon footprints on the environment. Hence, the objective is to provide a green cloud architecture to e-learning solutions. This architecture is addressing the issues such as improving resource use and reducing power consumption.
TopBackground
This section introduces state of art required to write this chapter. This includes cloud computing, e-Learning, the impact of e-learning in cloud computing, cloud computing, and energy usage, various energy efficiency models, features of clouds enabling green computing, and finally green computing in e-Learning applications.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Green Storage: Green storage is the practice of using a variety of “clean energy” storage methods and products to cut down on a data center's carbon footprint, as well as cost. With green storage, the goal goes beyond being environmentally friendly.
Efficient Energy: Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services.
Cloud Architecture: Cloud architecture refers to the various components in terms of databases, software capabilities, applications, etc. engineered to leverage the power of cloud resources to solve business problems.
Reference Model: A reference model is a model representing a class of domains (e.g., a reference model for production planning and control systems). It is a conceptual framework or blueprint for system's development.
Green Cloud: Green cloud refers to the potential environmental benefits that information technology (IT) services delivered over the Internet can offer society.
Data Center: A data center (or datacenter) is a facility composed of networked computers and storage that businesses or other organizations use to organize, process, store and disseminate large amounts of data. A business typically relies heavily upon the applications, services and data contained within a data center, making it a focal point and critical asset for everyday operations.
Energy Usage: Energy usage data, especially when added to other data and processed, enables utilities to deliver actionable information to consumers to achieve energy efficiency’s true potential.
Green Cloud Architecture: Green cloud architecture (GCA) is an IDC architecture that aims to reduce data-center power consumption. The advantage of this architecture is that it guarantees real-time performance, while saving in the total energy consumption of the IDC.
Energy Efficiency: Energy efficiency simply means using less energy to perform the same task – that is, eliminating energy waste. It brings a variety of benefits: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing demand for energy imports, and lowering our costs on a household and economy-wide level.
Reference Architecture: A reference architecture in the field of software architecture or enterprise architecture provides a template solution for an architecture for a particular domain. It also provides a common vocabulary with which to discuss implementations, often with the aim to stress commonality.
Green Computing: Green computing is the environmentally responsible and eco-friendly use of computers and their resources. In broader terms, it is also defined as the study of designing, manufacturing/engineering, using and disposing of computing devices in a way that reduces their environmental impact.
E-Learning: E-learning is all about intelligent learning and that which also makes the student interact with the course content.