Re: Carbon Efficiency of Semantic Web and Linked Data Queries

On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 5:09 PM David McDonell <david@iconicloud.com> wrote:

> And here’s a frothy commercial sector industry report on data center
> concentration (including AWS) in N.Virginia (DC metro area) citing MWattage
> consumption numbers, drawn from standard grid sources:
>
>
> https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/amazon/why-northern-virginia-data-center-market-bigger-most-realize
>
> Point is, carbon efficiency has to address the backbone infrastructure
> dimension; edge/end-user profiles are feel-good but dwarfed in comparison..
>
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 4:57 PM David McDonell <david@iconicloud.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think those latter three G-locations have abundant nuke power from the
>> ‘local’ grid; whole different set of issues there;-)
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 12:06 PM Marco Neumann <marco.neumann@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I like the way Google is going almost carbon neutral here in Hamina
>>> Finland by way of using cold seawater to cool systems. I hope they will
>>> also hook up the onsite sauna* to use excess HPC heat soon ;)
>>>
>>> I am still surprised they continue to run supercomputer clusters in
>>> places like Texas (Frontera), Tennessee (Summit) and Livermore, CA (Sierra)
>>>
>>>
>>> https://medium.com/arcticstartup-news/saunas-to-use-data-centres-excess-heat-c552e70946b
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 2:17 PM David McDonell <david@iconicloud.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thought this might be of relevance to the discussion, re global data
>>>> infrastructures (from my LinkedIn feed):
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/06/the-world-s-most-creative-data-centers-infographic.html
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 6:34 AM Marco Neumann <marco.neumann@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> While we in the Semantic Web / Linked Data community don't seem to
>>>>> fall into the category of worst offenders in energy consumption, (I am just
>>>>> looking at the forecast and data traffic breakdown on the internet[1] and
>>>>> the remarks made by the data-centre expert in Cheltenham[2] that digital
>>>>> mobile camera phone sobriety could reduce data traffic in Europe by 40%
>>>>> immediately) current federated SPARQL queries seem to be less efficient
>>>>> than one would have hoped for 20 years ago.[3] You are probably doing more
>>>>> for your carbon footprint by turning off your monitor completely rather
>>>>> than leaving it in stand-by mode [4] than by optimizing your federated
>>>>> SPARQL queries or going way of Solid Pods. It seems to be still difficult
>>>>> to estimate the number of deployed SPARQL solutions in industry and their
>>>>> footprint in terms of resource allocation. One of the best known projects
>>>>> but still heavily centralized SPARQL services the wikidata WDQS has a
>>>>> rather modest footprint if you go by the numbers published recently [5].
>>>>>
>>>>> Still and since this is my subject interest here the support and
>>>>> implementation for federated SPARQL query solutions is surprisingly
>>>>> underdeveloped [3] . Looking forward to learn more about updates here from
>>>>> QuWeDa 2019 [6]
>>>>>
>>>>> [1]
>>>>> https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/white-paper-c11-741490.html
>>>>> [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y
>>>>> [3] https://svn.aksw.org/papers/2017/FedEval-summary/public.pdf
>>>>> [4]
>>>>> https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/how-much-power-does-a-computer-use-and-how-much-co2-does-that-represent/54/
>>>>> [5]
>>>>> https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata_query_service/ScalingStrategy
>>>>> [6] https://sites.google.com/site/quweda2019/home
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:31 PM Zachary Whitley <
>>>>> zachary.whitley@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I wanted to add some perspective. The principal components of
>>>>>> aluminum refining are electricity and carbon and takes a significant amount
>>>>>> of electricity and produces large amounts of greenhouse gasses. Most of the
>>>>>> electricity consumed is produced by coal. Yes, we should be concerned about
>>>>>> energy consumption for computing but I wouldn't be surprised if you would
>>>>>> save more electricity and produce fewer greenhouse gasses by *expending*
>>>>>> computing resources on making aluminum production and recycling more
>>>>>> efficient.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting
>>>>>> [2]
>>>>>> http://www.world-aluminium.org/statistics/primary-aluminium-smelting-power-consumption/#histogram
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 3:09 PM Steffen Staab <staab@uni-koblenz.de>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don’t believe that a case can be made for physically
>>>>>>> decentrallized p2p being more energy efficient.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. Compute centers can be placed where energy is cheap and cooling
>>>>>>> inexpensive.
>>>>>>> Indeed this has been done a lot.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2. Cooling reduces energy needs. Generated warmth could even be
>>>>>>> re-used. Not thinkable for a DSL-box.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 3. Modern CPUs use less energy when unused. There is less need to
>>>>>>> re-use unnecessary compute cycles
>>>>>>> in DSL boxes (well, I guess these modern CPUs are only in laptops so
>>>>>>> far - still).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 4. decentralized energy production is good. Globally, however,
>>>>>>> people increasingly live in cities. This is not where most
>>>>>>> energy is or will be produced (though it can become more than today).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For sure, there is a lot of fruitful, middle ground between going
>>>>>>> for DSL boxes vs all using the same centralized compute center.
>>>>>>> I don’t believe in the extremely decentralized scenarios very much.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Steffen
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Am 17.06.2019 um 17:38 schrieb Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net
>>>>>>> >:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 17 Jun 2019, at 01:14, Marco Neumann <marco.neumann@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I would agree Henry. I think p2p networks are provably more cost
>>>>>>> efficient than centralized services in particular for small data providers.
>>>>>>> I think there now could be made a case with regards to energy efficiency.
>>>>>>> Taking your example of underused resources I would not be surprised to
>>>>>>> finding big tech already taking advantage of this network infrastructure of
>>>>>>> the underutilized nodes (aka your browser) rather than benefiting the
>>>>>>> individual end-users directly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> also good point with regards to using local resources,  similar to
>>>>>>> modern energy networks where most of the budget is not consumed by its
>>>>>>> production but its transportation, storage and infrastructure.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there work on p2p search for solid pods underway? I need to look
>>>>>>> at HTTP/2 and solid pods more closely I guess. my pod on solid.community is
>>>>>>> currently not in a good shape and I am not really having the feeling of
>>>>>>> being in control of my own data. Is it more advisable to run my own solid
>>>>>>> pod?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://neumann.solid.community/public/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It depends on how much you want to involve yourself in these early
>>>>>>> stages.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In 1993 I installed Linux on my father’s 40Mhz Laptop to see how
>>>>>>> well it fared,
>>>>>>> but it required quite a lot of knowledge to do that. Now everybody
>>>>>>> runs Linux
>>>>>>> on their phone and calls it Android.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> At this point the cloud version would be less work to get going I
>>>>>>> guess :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think of the web when deployed on individual instances as peer to
>>>>>>> peer,
>>>>>>> and with Solid it really is so, since for example you authenticating
>>>>>>> to a server,
>>>>>>> requires the Guard to become a client to fetch data from another
>>>>>>> server.
>>>>>>> Each node can be in one and the other role at different times -
>>>>>>> which is not
>>>>>>> to say that some nodes like browsers won’t specialize.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> P2P file sharing with duplication of content across nodes should
>>>>>>> really be
>>>>>>> named something else, more like distributed content sharing. Adding
>>>>>>> such features
>>>>>>> on Solid pods would be possible, but I think they are trying to
>>>>>>> restrict to keep focus.
>>>>>>> Adding it the right way - with RDF data to link to other copies on
>>>>>>> other pods - would
>>>>>>> be a nice research project. Perhaps the most important place to add
>>>>>>> that for
>>>>>>> Solid servers would be as distributed (encrypted) backups of one's
>>>>>>> pod on friends pods.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Henry
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 5:25 PM Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> My guess is that such studies have not been done, mostly because
>>>>>>>> widespread
>>>>>>>> deployment as would happen if Solid became widespread has not
>>>>>>>> happened
>>>>>>>> yet.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> But there are some reasons one could be optimistic.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 1. everyone has a DSL box at home currently that is on and not
>>>>>>>> doing much
>>>>>>>> a lot of the day, so consuming energy for nothing. Instead with
>>>>>>>> Solid Pods
>>>>>>>> those would be doing something useful, and could use electricity
>>>>>>>> from solar
>>>>>>>> energy produced locally. So you don’t increase local electricity
>>>>>>>> costs
>>>>>>>> that much, you can use locally produced electricity, but you
>>>>>>>> increase some
>>>>>>>> consumption of data.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 2. It is likely that most people communicate with local friends,
>>>>>>>> and in
>>>>>>>> most case don’t cross frontiers due to language barriers. This may
>>>>>>>> not be
>>>>>>>> the case for the W3C community, but for the wider populations this
>>>>>>>> is a
>>>>>>>> lot more likely.  So in a way Solid pods communicating with local
>>>>>>>> friends
>>>>>>>> would use less energy, since packets would not need to be sent
>>>>>>>> around the
>>>>>>>> world.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 3. There are a lot of optimization strategies that can be made by
>>>>>>>> having
>>>>>>>> widely deployed pods. For example used in p2p networks, by fetching
>>>>>>>> copies
>>>>>>>> of data heavy media in the nearest cache.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 4. With the internet of things growing, having the packets stay as
>>>>>>>> far as
>>>>>>>> required in the home rather than go to large service providers,
>>>>>>>> should
>>>>>>>> also improve data costs as well as privacy. That is the role of a
>>>>>>>> local DSL
>>>>>>>> box turned into a data pod is in any case going to grow in
>>>>>>>> importance, so
>>>>>>>> one may as well use this growing infrastructure.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Since producing energy locally is more efficient, and communicating
>>>>>>>> locally
>>>>>>>> when that is needed is better, there are reasons to think that some
>>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>> the advantages of large providers may be offset in other ways. That
>>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> without counting the huge improvements in efficiency in
>>>>>>>> communication
>>>>>>>> that come with HTTP2, reactive frameworks, and cpu efficiencies.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Henry
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> > On 16 Jun 2019, at 12:41, Marco Neumann <marco.neumann@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Has anybody done work on Carbon Efficiency of Semantic Web and
>>>>>>>> Linked Data Queries?
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > The very nature of distributed data sets has to come with a
>>>>>>>> substantial computational footprint every time a query is issued to a
>>>>>>>> single node or a cluster of nodes for a federated query. On the other hand
>>>>>>>> decentralization might actually outperform more centralized services in the
>>>>>>>> future.
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > I can find a number of papers and articles related to carbon
>>>>>>>> efficiency in general computing and cloud computing environments and data
>>>>>>>> centers but nothing specifically related to the improvement of operational
>>>>>>>> efficiency introduced by Semantic Web and Linked Data infrastructures.
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > There is CO2GLE which attempts to estimate the CO2 emissions per
>>>>>>>> second released by web search engines like Google as a reference here:
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much/
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Regards,
>>>>>>>> > Marco
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > --
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > ---
>>>>>>>> > Marco Neumann
>>>>>>>> > KONA
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> Marco Neumann
>>>>> KONA
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>> David McDonell Co-founder & CEO ICONICLOUD, Inc. "Illuminating the
>>>> cloud" M: 703-864-1203 EM: david@iconicloud.com URL:
>>>> http://iconicloud.com
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Marco Neumann
>>> KONA
>>>
>>> --
>> David McDonell Co-founder & CEO ICONICLOUD, Inc. "Illuminating the cloud"
>> M: 703-864-1203 EM: david@iconicloud.com URL: http://iconicloud.com
>>
> --
> David McDonell Co-founder & CEO ICONICLOUD, Inc. "Illuminating the cloud"
> M: 703-864-1203 EM: david@iconicloud.com URL: http://iconicloud.com
>
-- 
David McDonell Co-founder & CEO ICONICLOUD, Inc. "Illuminating the cloud"
M: 703-864-1203 EM: david@iconicloud.com URL: http://iconicloud.com