Blockchain and distributed computing at the service of reducing the environmental footprint
Date:
Publish on 29/01/2020
The Avalon research team, a joint team between Inria, CNRS, ENS de Lyon and the University Lyon1, in collaboration with the start-up Stimergy, is proposing a new distributed Cloud approach. This approach notably opens up prospects in the field of optimising the use of data centers with a reduction in their environmental footprint.
The Avalon team, which for several years has been carrying out research on distributed computing systems, and the start-up Stimergy, designer of digital boilers, have just demonstrated that blockchain technology can help to achieve a distributed marketplace in which different players can make available their IT resources, thereby creating a "distributed Cloud".
This distributed Cloud approach enables, among other things, a rethink of the organisation of data centers, whose extreme concentration poses serious problems: excessive energy consumption, remoteness of data centers in areas where electricity is cheaper or cooling is free (Iceland), and sovereignty of data entrusted by the users, without any possible control, to the Internet giants (GAFA).
Made possible by the simultaneous use of blockchain and distributed computing, this new distributed Cloud approach will make it possible to optimise the environmental footprint of the data centers by spreading them out within the town itself. It also enables data to be brought closer to its producers and consumers, which opens the way to numerous new applications for which the centralised Cloud is a limiting factor such as, for example, distributed Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and the distributed analysis of data flows.