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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Schneider, Ian, Mattia, Taylor
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09645
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author Schneider, Ian
Mattia, Taylor
author_facet Schneider, Ian
Mattia, Taylor
contents This paper presents a methodology for allocating energy consumption to multiple users of shared data center machines, infrastructure, and software. Google uses this methodology to provide carbon reporting data for enterprise customers of multiple Google products, including Google Cloud and Workspace. The approach documented here advances the state-of-the-art of large scale Cloud carbon reporting systems. It uses detailed, granular measurement data on machine energy consumption. In addition, it uses physical factors for allocating energy consumption and carbon emissions--preferred by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Scope 3 Reporting Standard. Specifically, the approach described here allocates machine energy consumption based on a combination of data center resource reservations and hourly measured resource usage. It also accounts for Google's own internal use of shared software services, reallocating energy use to the users of those shared services. Finally, it uses hourly, location-specific estimates of carbon intensity to precisely measure carbon emissions of users in a global fleet of data centers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_09645
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Carbon accounting in the Cloud: a methodology for allocating emissions across data center users
Schneider, Ian
Mattia, Taylor
Software Engineering
This paper presents a methodology for allocating energy consumption to multiple users of shared data center machines, infrastructure, and software. Google uses this methodology to provide carbon reporting data for enterprise customers of multiple Google products, including Google Cloud and Workspace. The approach documented here advances the state-of-the-art of large scale Cloud carbon reporting systems. It uses detailed, granular measurement data on machine energy consumption. In addition, it uses physical factors for allocating energy consumption and carbon emissions--preferred by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Scope 3 Reporting Standard. Specifically, the approach described here allocates machine energy consumption based on a combination of data center resource reservations and hourly measured resource usage. It also accounts for Google's own internal use of shared software services, reallocating energy use to the users of those shared services. Finally, it uses hourly, location-specific estimates of carbon intensity to precisely measure carbon emissions of users in a global fleet of data centers.
title Carbon accounting in the Cloud: a methodology for allocating emissions across data center users
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09645