Research project limits computer power consumption

According to the university, power consumption by servers has more than doubled since 2000, with estimates of electricity use for servers worldwide costing about $US7.2 billion in 2005.

Lee and Zomaya have tested ECS with a number of benchmarks that "reflect the behaviour of many applications".

"For example, we have used ECS for solving equations and other computing-intensive applications. They are drawn from real-world examples," Zomaya said.

The team is hoping to have the prototype ready for early next year with a product available by the end of 2010.

Zomaya said the growing popularity of cloud computing will help IT managers reduce data centre energy costs, but more research needs to be done before large organisations can fully trust their "precious data" to cloud technology.