Second Special Issue on Green Networking and Computing

Optimization and reduction of energy consumption and the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions are among the most urgent challenges of the twenty-first century. Such challenges call for significant research to be carried out in order to develop new technologies that can enable a transition towards a more energy efficient society, leading to a reduced carbon footprint. Information and communication technologies (ICT) can reduce the environmental impact of human activities by improving energy efficiency in many sectors of the world's economies. However, recent studies indicate that global ICT energy consumption amounts to 7 percent of entire electricity production , which in turn causes about 2 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Due to the rapid growth of traffic and infrastructure, energy costs of communications networks as typically representative of ICT sector become significant. Studies show that network equipment in wired networks consume 15 percent while base stations in cellular networks up to 80 percent of overall energy used. Due to this, energy efficient and sustainable networking and computing, often simply referred to as " Green networking and computing " , have gained huge attention by researchers in academia and industry over the last few years. To meet the challenges of increasing energy efficiency in networking and computing, it is necessary to develop and implement diverse paradigm-shifting technologies such as: energy-efficient cooperative techniques among mobile network operators, energy-efficient networking devices, energy-efficient virtualization models, and power supply systems based on renewable energy sources. All of these technologies have been discussed in this second special issue on green networking and computing, which is a continuation of the previous Volume 9 issue (April-June 2013) of the International Journal of Business Data Communications and Networking (IJBDCN). It includes four articles selected for publication, which are dedicated to the latest advances in energy-efficient fixed and mobile communication technologies.