Energy efficiency of mobile clients in cloud computing

Abstract

Energy efficiency is a fundamental consideration for mo-bile devices. Cloud computing has the potential to save mobile client energy but the savings from offloading the computation need to exceed the energy cost of the addi-tional communication. In this paper we provide an analysis of the critical fac-tors affecting the energy consumption of mobile clients in cloud computing. Further, we present our measure-ments about the central characteristics of contemporary mobile handheld devices that define the basic balance be-tween local and remote computing. We also describe a concrete example, which demonstrates energy savings. We show that the trade-offs are highly sensitive to the exact characteristics of the workload, data communica-tion patterns and technologies used, and discuss the im-plications for the design and engineering of energy effi-cient mobile cloud computing solutions. 1