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Green Computing and Green Technology in E-Learning

for various sectors

ABSTRACT

E-learning is the use of technology to enable people to learn something anywhere and anytime. The delivery
of a learning, training or education program by electronic means involves the use of a computer or
electronic device such as a mobile phone in some way to make available training, educational or

learning material. E-learning methods have drastically changed the educational environment and also
reduced the use of papers and ultimately reduce the production of carbon footprint. E-learning
methodology is an example of Green computing. Green Computing or Green IT refers to the study and
practice of using computing resources in an eco-friendly manner in order to tone down the environmental
impacts of computing. It is the practice of using computing resources in an energy efficient and
environmentally friendly manner. To reduce unnecessary energy consumption due to hazardous

materials has become a major topic of concern today. In the present paper the authors have discussed
how Green Computing can be incorporated into different institutions, corporate/business sectors or may
be in various IT companies.

1. INTRODUCTION
Due to economic budget constraint in all over the globe now the training budgets have been slashed. As a
result of that the traditional training is now becoming almost impossible. This is because in the traditional
training the trainers have to move from one place to another place and to do that they have to use flights
or trains or any kind of automobiles which consumes money and the outcome is carbon footprint.
E-learning can provide an environmentally friendly way to bridge this training gap, particularly in
business sector where the staff are spread across different offices, regions or even countries. E-learning
comes in many forms from fully featured interactive Web based courses that user can take in their own
time to interactive virtual instructor led training (VILT) delivered using advanced training delivery
interfaces such as Microsoft Live Meeting or the widely used Webex system. This saves lot of money
and the environment also. E- learning adopts green computing methodology, where “Green
Warming, greenhouses gases, climatic changes and

sustainable development are the key challenges. Thus for a sustainable environment Green Computing
should be enabled for the ecological balance in the environment. Green Computing is actually the
study and practice of using and disposing of computers, servers and the associated subsystems such as
monitors, printers, networking and systems of communications with minimal impact on nature.

The goals of Green Computing are:

(i) To reduce the use of hazardous materials.

(ii) To maximize energy efficiency during the lifetime o

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the products.

(iii) To recycle the defunct products and factory wastage

in order to enable biodegradability.

Green IT is not any application which can be incorporated into any existing systems or a product. It
is actually an improvement over the existing systems and the way to move forward with the existing IT
infrastructure. It is now high time we start working towards keeping the air clean, save our

valuable resources like soil, water, fuel sources for our successors apart from saving finances as this
is the biggest asset which we can pass it down to the future generations. Green IT also refers to the
solutions of IT that saves energy.
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2. Application of Green IT/Technology in some developing countries:

Fifty-percent of business in the United States used Green Technologies as practices to improve energy
efficiency within their establishments in August 2011, and over half used Green IT practices to reduce or
eliminate the creation of waste materials as a result of operations. Green Technologies and Practices
(GTP) survey data were collected from a sample of about 35,000 business establishments in the 50 states
and the District of Columbia.

Use of technologies and practices to improve energy efficiency within the establishment, like
occupying a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building or using energy
efficient lighting or programmable thermostats.

Technologies or practices are also used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through methods other than
the renewable energy generation and energy efficiency including alternative transportation forms for the
employees, such as carpools or mass transit.

Fig 1: Establishments using combinations of two Green Technologies and Practices as a percentage of all
establishments using at least one Green Technology or Practice, August 2011: Source: U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics
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3. METHODOLOGIES AND APPROACHES TOWARDS GREEN COMPUTING

3.1 Introduction of a subject “Green Technology” in the graduation level:

Green Computing is a very important topic in the current scenario. Now it is necessary that in graduation or
even in school level also there must be one subject called “Green Technology” to introduce the concept of
Green IT and Green technology. This subject is now not only a theoretical subject on the other hand a full
application oriented subject. The students should be trained from school/college level what we mean by
Green Technology or Green IT. The student should be given some project on Green Computing or Green
Technology. They should be allowed to do experiment on how to save energy. A Computer is now a most
important instrument for everyone in educational, commercial, corporate, banks, government sectors
everywhere. Without this instrument no work can be done. So the use of computers must be optimum. The
user should be given the knowledge of its proper utilization. Computers should not be used unnecessarily.
Even if the user does not switch off the computer, they should power-down the CPU and all peripherals
during the extended periods of inactivity. A user should also learn how to make use of the defective and
outdated parts of the machine by recycling them instead of disposing them as wastage. In fact, after school
level all sorts of study materials should be available as ematerial on net or in CDs. This will help in low use
of printed materials. Hence, such knowledge must be incorporated into each individual so as to maintain
eco-friendliness.

3.2 Green Computing in IT Companies/Institution:

In today‟s world, computing is not at all environment friendly. It is high time that things need to be changed.
For a fresh new start, companies or businesses should be increasingly keen to make energy and cost savings
in the face of rising electricity prices. Computing has a big area of human activities where real
environmental savings need to be made implementing straight-forward practical measures with existing
hardware. Software should be used such that it permits companies, institutions or individuals to measure and
reduce the carbon emissions resulting from their computer use. Power can be saved even when the computer
is put into a “standby” or “sleep” mode as many people are not aware of the fact that shutting down a
desktop computer does not completely turn it off. In Fig-1 we have shown how power is consumed by a lap-
top and by a desktop computer. The fig shows that desktop is taking more power than a lap-top computer.
An IT company is totally incomplete without a PC; hence for different IT companies green PC‟s can be
built. Many companies such as Intel have already developed Greener desktop computing in a big way with a
high energy efficient processor called Atom. Hardware manufacturers should avoid using substances like
lead, mercury, cadmium, beryllium, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to
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make computers. This can help more electronics waste to be safely recycled because these toxic substances
never help in safe recycling.

3.3 Green Computing in corporate/business sectors:

Green technology along with green computing is referred to as the environmentally responsible use of
computers and any other technology related resources. It includes implementing the best practices such as
energy efficient CPU‟s, peripherals and servers. It offers cost reduction and operational benefits to the
network managers. For an entire organization, technologies like Cloud Computing are a great alternative. It
eliminates the need for hardware like servers. This is also termed as Virtualization, where Cloud computing
replaces hardware with “virtual” servers or servers in “the cloud”. It allows corporate or business sectors to
reduce their need for bulky, big and energy-consuming servers by relocating them on the Internet. This
Cloud Computing must be used in areas such as data storage, networking, software applications, operating
systems, thus reducing the need for the hardware in a particular business sector. Henceforth, corporate or
business sectors can save a lot of money, time and resources on maintenance and support. In any business
environment, paper-based work includes several forms, documents, notes, call activities, sales logs, quotes
and contracts. It may also include mailing and faxing hardcopy quotations or sales orders and printing
various reports of purchasing, etc. These can be replaced by working online thus saving a lot of paperwork.
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3.4 To design Green Software and the corresponding green Operating

System (O/S):
The aim of designing green software is Sustainable Software Development and the use of Open Source
methodologies. Sustainable Development is termed as balancing the economic growth and social needs with
the natural environment which should be achieved so that the growth in the present does not sacrifice the
future opportunities adversely. These developments refers to specialized software engineers and developers
who should design, build and maintain the networks of data collection systems, sensors and different
probabilistic modeling so as to support smart energy grids, alternative energy production and other systems
to substitute intelligence for natural resources. Open Source is a driven approach that is not linked to any
vendor/supplier. It is widely supported by environmentally conscious proponents using fewer resources, thus
being more efficient. The future operating system should be network based and it would be efficient in
running network applications via Cloud Computing. Power consumption should be handled at both the
levels: end user and server level. Linux is considered to be green OS as it is more environmentally friendly
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relative to proprietary systems. It has efficient power consumption mechanism. Associated with the power
savings are reduced carbon emissions.

3.5 Power Control Management:

Replacement of light bulbs at home, or any institutions, working sectors and even at the streets or stadiums
must be done immediately with energy-efficient ones. This will enable huge savings of power. But it is to be
ensured that they are not mercury-vapor light bulbs because when they go to the trash/recycling center, they
are full of poisonous mercury. Tracking should be kept to progress towards the carbon emission goals. The
power can be controlled by using LCD monitors instead of CRT monitors. PC‟s alone consume anywhere
from 50- 250 watts of energy! The monitor itself consumes tons of energy with a traditional CRT monitor.
On the other hand, Laptops use far less energy at around 45 watts and are more energy efficient than the
desktop computers. A laptop is always better to use than a desktop computer as it uses 1/3 of the energy and
is portable thus taking up less room. Even setting the “sleep” functionality on one‟s computer is a great idea
when one forgets to turn it off! The best way to save money on computer energy use is to turn off and
unplug the computer when not in use. Additional energy can be saved on top of the savings of computer.
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Common accessories like printers, modems, routers, speakers, etc are used by most of the people. The
printer is one of the larger energy users of all computer accessories. All-in-one printers use much more
energy than traditional printers as they have much functionality. Many accessories like the router and
modem are not able to go into “standby” mode and therefore run at all times. So, its better to turn them off
or unplug them when not in use. The table helps us to compare the power consumption by various computer

3.6 Utilization of Energy in a green way:

As we all know from the very beginning that Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but conserving energy is
the most important of all today. Energy efficient computers can be used as an alternative now. Apart from this online
threats also contribute to the growing climate crisis. Viruses, spyware and malware draw on the processing power of
our computer, even when we aren‟t using it. This consumes energy and adds to CO2 emissions. So it is better to use
anti-malware services which can protect businesses and reduce the overall energy consumption and thus electric bills.
The institutions should also start to use solar energy so as to save a lot of valuable energy on Earth. In 2011, The
International Energy Agency said that “the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy
technologies will have huge longer-team benefits. It will enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of
mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global.” Solar
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energy technologies are designed to use the sun‟s energy to heat homes, provide lighting, create hot water, or generate
electricity. Computers also play an essential role in solar power systems especially to maximize energy efficiency.
Solar cells also require very little maintenance throughout their lifetime. It does not require any cost other than the
initial installation costs and thus provides energy at virtually no cost.

3.7 Mobile Computing should replace all other computing:

Mobile computing is “taking a computer and all necessary files and software out into the field.” Mobile phones have
emerged out to be a better option in comparison to Computers. Computers are generally needed for surfing the
internet, chat, gaming, social networking, downloading, uploading, desktop computing including documents,
spreadsheets, working on presentations, watching photos, videos and listening to music. Today‟s mobile phones have
all the above mentioned functions integrated in it. It has a large memory space in it, processors working in very high
speed, more RAM, faster wireless Internet connectivity but they consume much low power compared to the
Computers. Students can study using the mobile phones where there are applications that enable them to go through
the e-books, give online examinations and publish e-paper. Ematerials should be available so that anybody can
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download it and study. College and University examinations should be modified to online examinations. The Teachers
also should check the answer papers online. The Teachers should make it a point to teach the students on-line so as to
reduce the production of carbon foot print. Thus mobile computing helps in reduction of power, costs of
communicating from one place to another place and being more energy efficient. Thus Green Computing or Green
Technology should be practiced in the best possible way to mitigate the climatic changes and increase the eco-
friendliness on earth. The potential approaches to Green computing are power management, energy efficiency,
working online, e-mail, virtualization, and cloud computing. For the success of the green initiatives taken in Higher
Education Institutes, awareness and proper implementation of the concepts should be taking place. There is also a
need to make individuals, students and management aware of the benefits of Green Computing in terms of
sustainability and cost savings through different programmes. The primary objective of the IT policy makers in Higher
Educational Institutes should be spreading the awareness about sustainable computing and implementation of green
computing initiatives. However, green practices should be inculcated within the students so that they can put it in
practice in their future endeavors.

4. LITERATURE REVIEW
When it comes to PC disposal you need to know everything there is to know in order to be involved in green
computing. Basically, the whole green aspect came about quite a few years back when the news that the environment
was not a renewable resource really hit home and people started realizing that they had to do their part to protect the
environment. Many governments worldwide have initiated energy-management programs, such as Energy Star, an
international standard for energy-efficient electronic equipment that was created by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency in 1992 and has now been adopted by several other countries. Energy Star reduces the amount of
energy consumed by a product by automatically switching it into ―sleep mode when not in use or reducing the
amount of power used by a product when in ―standby mode. Surprisingly, standby ―leaking, the electricity
consumed by appliances when they are switched off, can represent as much as 12 percent of a typical household‗s
electricity consumption. Basically, the efficient use of computers and computing is what green computing is all about.
The triple bottom line is what is important when it comes to anything green and the same goes for green computing.
This considers social responsibility, economic viability and the impact on the environment. Many business simply
focus on a bottom line, rather than a green triple bottom line, of economic viability when it comes to computers. The
idea is to make the whole process surrounding computers more friendly to the environment, economy, and society.
This means manufacturers create computers in a way that reflects the triple bottom line positively. Once computers are
sold businesses or people use them in a green way by reducing power usage and disposing of them properly or
recycling them. The idea is to make computers from beginning to end a green product. The solution to green
computing is to create an efficient system that implements these factors in an environmentally friendly way. A good
example would be IT managers purchasing hardware that has been EPEAT approved meaning that maintenance is
reduced, the hardware's life is extended, and makes recycling the computer easy once it is no longer necessary. Mobile
phones are better than computers – green computing. What do you use your computer for? Surfing Internet, chat,
gaming, social networking, downloading, desktop computing including documents, spreadsheets or presentation
making or just watching your photos and videos? Today‘s mobile phones are capable of doing it all, rather sometimes
more than the traditional phones. They have faster processors, more ram, faster wireless Internet connectivity and
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larger memories. Mobile Phones consume very low power. VIA Technologies, a Taiwanese company that
manufactures motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and other computer hardware, introduced its initiative for "green
computing, If everyone takes into account green computing then our world of computers will have as little a negative
impact on our physical world as possible and that is what green computing is all about.

5. E- Learning and green computing

E-learning is the use of technology to enable people to learn something anywhere and anytime.The delivery
of a learning, training or education program by electronic means involves the use of acomputer or electronic
device such as a mobile phone in some way to make available training,educational or learning material. E-
learning methods have drastically changed the educationalenvironment and also reduced the use of papers
and ultimately reduce the production of carbonfootprint. E-learning methodology is an example of Green
computing. Green Computing or GreenIT refers to the study and practice of using computing resources in an
eco-friendly manner in orderto tone down the environmental impacts of computing. It is the practice of
using computingresources in an energy efficient and environmentally friendly manner. To reduce
unnecessaryenergy consumption due to hazardous materials has become a major topic of concern today. In
thepresent paper the authors have discussed how Green Computing can be incorporated into
differentinstitutions, corporate/business sectors or may be in various IT companies.Due to economic budget
constraint in all over the globe now the training budgets have beenslashed. As a result of that the traditional
training is now becoming almost impossible. This isbecause in the traditional training the trainers have to
move from one place to another place and todo that they have to use flights or trains or any kind of
automobiles which consumes money andthe outcome is carbon footprint. E-learning can provide an
environmentally friendly way to bridgethis training gap, particularly in business sector where the staff are
spread across different offices,regions or even countries. E-learning comes in many forms from fully
featured interactive Webbased courses that user can take in their own time to interactive virtual instructor
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led training(VILT) delivered using advanced training delivery interfaces such as Microsoft Live Meeting
orthe widely used Webex system. This saves lot of money and the environment also. E-learning adopts
green computing methodology, where ―Green Computing‖ is a term that implies a good,healthy and
economically sensible environment. In Today‘s world GlobalWarming, greenhouses gases, climatic changes
and sustainable development are the keychallenges. Thus for a sustainable environment Green Computing
should be enabled for theecological balance in the environment. Green Computing is actually the study and
practice of usingand disposing of computers, servers and the associated subsystems such as monitors,
printers,networking and systems of communications with minimal impact on nature. The goals of
GreenComputing are:(i) To reduce the use of hazardous materials.(ii) To maximize energy efficiency during
the lifetime of the products.(iii) To recycle the defunct products and factory wastage in order to enable
biodegradability. Green IT is not any application which can be incorporated into any existing systems or a
product.It is actually an improvement over the existing systems and the way to move forward with
theexisting IT infrastructure. It is now high time we start working towards keeping the air clean, saveour
valuable resources like soil, water, fuel sources for our successors apart from saving financesas this is the
biggest asset which we can pass it down to the future generations. Green IT alsorefers to the solutions of IT
that saves energy.

6.Green Computing and Green Technology based teaching learning and

administration in Higher Education Institutions
Green Computing or Green IT refers to the study and practice of using computing resources in an eco-
friendly manner in order to tone down its negative impacts on the environment. The major thrust should be
to reduce the unnecessary energy consumption, decrease the use of hazardous materials, minimize travel and
limit printing so as to have minimum impact on the environment. To implement green computing and green
technology, the higher education institutions have a very crucial role to play as these are the hubs for
disseminating information and implementing ideas. The concept of Green Computing revolves around
making sure that people are practicing how they can save resources when they use the computing
technology. In the present paper the authors have made a systematic study on how the educational institutes
can save energy, recycle e-waste, to use minimum printed material and to store all information in edatabase
for future use and modification. To make the environment sustainable the educators, students administrators,
guardians have to shake their hands with each other and try to optimize the use of power and more use of e-
material rather than printed materials to reduce the carbon foot print. The authors also propose that there
should be proper initiative from government sector to introduce green technology and green computing to
make this globe sustainable for our future generations.
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7.Analysis of digitizing archive applications to reduce paper usage

Various data and information in the form of documents will accompany every activity in an institution. The
existence of a reliable management to create, store, record, distribute, and maintain documents is needed to
generate dynamic information traffic. In addition, the application of document processing can reduce the use
of paper in every activity of an institution which will indirectly reduce excessive forest exploitation. The
purpose of this research is to analyse digitizing archive application as an integrated archive management
application to reduce the use of paper in every activity of an institution. Qualitative descriptive methods was
used as a research methodology. The result of this study based of the analysis of the digitizing archive
application that has been done in terms of data and procedures can be concluded that digitizing archive
application can reduce the use of paper as a document in various institutional activities.

8. Analysis of digitizing archive applications to reduce paper usage

Global warming occurs due to the dense greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere which produce excess
carbon. Forests have an important role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing climate
change. Changes in mean climate and climate extremes such as drought, storms, cyclones and wildfires can
occur which are fundamentally very dangerous and affect human life. Along with the increasingly of
population and diverse human activities, resulting in excessive forest exploitation. Human activities may
determine harmful and irreversible environmental impacts, and it carries the notion of environmental limits
[1]. Paper is a medium for conveying information as well as a communicating tool used by the community,
printing an archives uses enormous paper and in turn wastes huge natural resources which are needed to
produce the paper [2]. Forest Ethics notes that the use of wood as a raw material for paper reaches a
percentage of 40% of the wood industry as a whole. every hour the world loses 1732.5 hectares of forest
because it is cut down to become paper raw material [3]. Indonesia is one of the countries that have the
largest forests in the world, therefore this country is relied upon as one of the lungs of the world to prevent
global warming. Currently paper consumption in the world is estimated at 490 million tons (2nd
international symposium on resources Efficiency in Pulp and Paper Technology), the realization of paper
production in Indonesia is 7.98 million tons / year. With this production capability, Indonesia is ranked 6th
for the world's largest paper producer.

The excessive use of paper behaviour, helps the rate of forest reduction or deforestation. even largescale also
contributes to the destruction of Indonesia's forests. At present many ways have been done to reduce the
cutting down of trees as raw material for paper, such as by recycling paper. Recycling is the process of
turning used materials into new materials with the aim of preventing the presence of waste that can actually
be useful, reducing the use of new raw materials, reducing energy use, reducing pollution, land damage, and
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greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the process of making new goods. But there are still a few
problem in the recycling process such as tensile strength, bursting strength, and apparent density of the pulps
decreased with recycling [4]. Apart from that, the increase in online media is not too hindering the
development of the paper industry. One of the other things we can do to reduce paper usage in daily life is to
use various applications as a medium for storing and delivering information. Information technology
provides new media to disseminate information, namely digital media [5]. as we know various data and
information in the form of documents paper will accompany every activity in an institution. College is one
of the many institutions that use paper in various document archive activities. The purpose of this research is
to design a document digitization application as the used of information and communication technology
(ICT) that can take an important part [6] to reduce the use of paper in college institution.

In general, college archives consist of dynamic archives and static archives. Dynamic archives are archives
that are used directly in planning, implementing, and administering college administration. Dynamic
archives can be divided into 2 (two) types, namely active and inactive archive [9]. Active archive is a
dynamic archive that is created continuously and is used as a work file. Inactive archive are dynamic files
that are rarely used or use frequencies for their use.
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While static archives are records that are not used directly in planning, implementing and administering in
general, or are not used directly in administering college administration.

The computer’s ability to store, retrieve and manipulate large amounts of data rapidly and cheaply has led to
its wide spread use in managing many clerical, accounting and service documentation functions in
organizations [10]. As an institution that has a strategic function, college need reliable document
management. Reliable management has the ability to store and maintain the balance of documentcreation,
document traffic, recording, forwarding, distribution, usage, storage and maintenance. Various activities that
require accuracy, are handled by technology. Technology can also make space requirements narrowed, place
efficiency. Similarly, Information Technology is still believed to be able to play a role in simplifying the
work. With the digitizing archive application, abundant documents are classified as needed and stored as
digital files as illustrated in Figure 1.
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With information technology that is growing rapidly, data processing can be done with a very large capacity,
both the ability to collect and speed of processing, as well as the diversity of forms of information produced.
Another advantage is the ease in rediscovering and presenting it, both to be seen visually and the need for
propagation to be distributed. A reliable application will help store it in a database. The diversity of types of
information recorded in documents will be classified and categorized as needed so that they will be stored
regularly in a database. With the application, all data that has been arranged according to these needs can be
displayed again according to the original. Even with the intelligence of the application, the document as a
source of information will increasingly show its usefulness in the presence of graphics. Graphs can visually
depict the diversity of information from documents. Various categories and classifications of documents
needed will appear and can be based on time.

Globally the process that occurs in the archive digitization application is where all documents, archives,
incoming letters, and outgoing letters will be stored in the application database which will then be displayed
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again as information material that can be used in various university activities, both in planning,
implementation, and evaluation material in the form of reports or graphs as shown in Figure 2. Archive
digitization applications must have the ability to store various types of documents originating in text or
image files or hard copy documents. If the document is in the form of a file (soft copy), then digitization can
be done immediately by inputting the document data according to the attributes requested by the application.
Archives in the form of hardcopy will go through a process of digitization by scanning in advance so that it
becomes a softcopy file in the form of image files or document files. After the document appears in the
application, then the input process begins. The digitization process can be seen in Figure 3.

Archive digitization application is an integrated client server application, so that all archives that have been
digitalized can be seen and used by all application users depending on the access rights granted to each user.
All computers are integrated via network and each can access the system. Network energy saving can be
done by reducing the operation time of PAs, shrinking the working bandwidth, or even shutting down the
RBS site [11]. Each user is given different authority according to their level of authority. Each user is set
access rights to the module in the application, whether he has the right to access all modules or only a few or
one module. Then whether he has the right to input data or limited to reading the module. All the modules in
the application are integrated so that the data inputted on one module will be a source of information for
other modules as we can see in Figure 4.
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By granting user access rights, the doubling of paper for each document that is usually done can be
minimized. Other than that, documents that have been digitalized can be recycled back into new paper so
that they can be used for other documents. It will also help reduce the use of new paper for various other
documents. Training and socialization to users are no less important aspects in the implementation of
archive digitization applications. This needs to be done because technology will change the work culture.
Implementation of the system requires effort from prospective users. All users must be made aware of how
important the system is built and must be utilized as optimal as possible.
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9. Green and Energy-Efficient Computing Architecture for E-Learning

Energy consumption is a bottleneck for Information computing and communication. Internet has provided
an unlimited potential with access to eBooks, multimedia content, news, new ideas, and information access
in general but, due to poor broadband infrastructure and available grid power to support the Internet and ICT
growth the, developing regions have actually been left even further behind. The basic requirements in any
developing region are a reliable electric power grid, network infrastructure, education, jobs, and a stable
government and banking system.

With the growth of high speed networks over the last decades, there is an alarming rise in its usage
comprised of thousands of concurrent e-commerce transactions and millions of Web queries a day.

This ever-increasing demand is handled through large-scale datacenters, which consolidate hundreds

and thousands of servers with other infrastructure such as cooling, storage and network systems. Many

internet companies such as Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo are operating such huge datacenters

around the world. Traditionally, business organizations used to invest huge amount of capital and time

in acquisition and maintenance of computational resources.The emergence of Cloud computing is rapidly

changing this ownership-based approach to subscription-oriented approach by providing access to scalable
infrastructure and services on-demand. Moreover, Cloud computing also offers enormous amount of
compute power to organizations which require processing of tremendous amount of data generated almost
every day. Cloud Computing provides an appropriate pool of computing resources with its dynamic
scalability and usage of virtualized resources as a service through the Internet [Poonam, 2014]. The
resources can be network servers, applications, platforms, infrastructure segments and services. It delivers
services autonomously based on demand and provides sufficient network access, data resource environment
and effectual flexibility. This technology is used for more efficient and cost effective computing by central-

izing storage, memory, computing capacity of PC’s and servers. Cloud computing is a highly scalable and
cost-effective infrastructure for running High Performance Computing (HPC), enterprise and Web
applications [Ashish, 2013]. However, the growing demand of Cloud infrastructure has drastically increased
the energy consumption of data centers, which has become a critical issue. The use of large shared
virtualized datacenters, Cloud Computing can offer large energy savings. Also, the Cloud services can also
further increase the internet traffic and its growing information database which could decrease such energy
savings [Kamble 2013].Cloud uses thousands of data-centers in order to process the user queries and to run
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these data-centers bulk amount of power is used for cooling and other processes. Every year this power
consumption is gradually increasing and green cloud computing endeavors to reduce the same thus playing a
helpful role to curb these issues. One area of research focuses on reduction in energy consumption and
reduce the total power consumption by balancing load and effectively utilizing only a subset of the resources
at hand. Some form of load balancing to save power during different load conditions. Many techniques

are used to measure the power consumption in data-centers. Many articles are been released on how Cloud
Computing helps the developing world by just lowering ICT costs but, here it introduces Green computing
aiming to reduce energy cost and CO2 emissions as well as to effectively reuse and recycle power usage
making the world go-green. Green computing is the environmentally responsible use of computers and
related resources (Kaur 2014).The approaches to Green Computing on Educational Institutions are power
management, e-mail, on-line learning and energy/cost saving measures. Many institutions have chosen to
include information on their websites about green computing efforts and how to reduce carbon footprints.
Hence, energy efficient solutions are required to ensure the environmental sustainability of this new
computing paradigm. Green Cloud computing is envisioned to achieve not only efficient processing and
utilization of computing infrastructure, but also minimize energy consumption [Gaganjot 2013]. Cloud
computing with increasingly pervasive front-end client devices interacting with back-end data centers will
cause an enormous escalation of energy usage. To address this problem, data center resources need to be
managed in an energy-efficient manner to drive Green Cloud computing.
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10. Cloud Computing Based E-Learning System

Cloud computing technologies although in their early stages, have managed to change the way
applications are going to be developed and accessed. These technologies are aimed at running
applications as services over the internet on a flexible infrastructure. Microsoft office applications, such as
word processing, excel spreadsheet, access database and many more can be accessed through the
internet, even though the files and applications are housed in the cloud. Cloud computing provides a low
cost solution to academic institutions for their researchers, faculty and students. This setup provides an
additional benefit because all these browser-based applications can also be accessed through mobile
devices in addition to being available to a variety of laptop and desk top computers, provided internet
access is available. In this paper we present a solution that is based on cloud computing and can be used for
building a virtual environment both for teaching and learning. We present an interactive tool that can be
used for science education; we combined various technologies to achieve this goal. The environment
and the design proposed can also be used as a platform for exploring and sharing new ideas as well as
for designing, modifying and monitoring educational or course contents. In our design under the same
environment we also allow integration of different pedagogical approaches to both learning and teaching.
The increased use of technology for improved teaching and enhanced learning is going to be the future of
education at all levels. Most of the colleges and universities, because of low enrollment in their onsite
classes, now offer courses and in some cases the entire degree program through distance education or in
online format as well as use various other teaching and learning models.

Most of these online offerings currently are at undergraduate level but there is a growing trend of

using similar models for graduate and post baccalaureate professional education. There are many

different terminologies and technologies used in the online teaching and learning arena, as well

as for dissemination of knowledge. This new frontier of education is generally known as E-

Learning (Sone, 2001), (Luchini, Oehler, Quintana, & Soloway, 2001), (Heinrich, Jesshope, &

Walker, 2001).

Carchiolo in (Carchiolo, Longheu, Malgeri, & Mangioni, 2003) propose an e-learning model

related to this new frontier of education, in an attempt to significantly improve the whole

learning process for learners. The model provides to both students as well as teachers an open

and modular learning environment. In this approach, courses are personalized according to the

needs and capabilities of each individual student. Teacher guidelines are also taken into account
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in this process. To accomplish personalization, courses or lessons and precedence or succession

relationships are shown as graph nodes and arcs respectively. The lessons, for individual

students, are extracted through the creation of personalized sub graphs (Learning paths) using a

course generation engine. The lessons that are known to student are eliminated and rest is

arranged into a tree with all possible paths right from the knowledge that the students possess to

knowledge that is desired by the student.

To make sure that the power of the Web is fully utilized for Web-based teaching and learning, a

new Game-based Situated Learning Paradigm—VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented

Learning Environment) is proposed in (Shang, Jong, Lee, & Lee, 2007), with an aim to help

students learn from close to real-life experiences and social constructions of knowledge. The

study presented showed that the VISOLE learning paradigm, did actually help students to learn

subject-specific knowledge and generic skills, and most importantly did motivate students to

learn. In fact, there were some other findings to support that the students could also actually learn

the knowledge they were required to get in the process.

With rapid advances in technology and extensive use of computers in academic institutes,

businesses and homes, there is now an excellent opportunity to create and support a new culture

of learning. In (Sing, Sivaswamy, & Naidu, 2007) an approach is presented to create a Multi-

Component Distributed System (MuDiS) that can be used in science education primarily at the

school level, though it is also usable in tertiary education. Multi User Virtual Environments

(MUVEs) introduces innovative and new opportunities for academicians to improvise and design

new ways of addressing the specific needs of ‘online student’ learning styles. Today’s online

students have very different thinking styles and ways of processing information from their

predecessors. (Prensky, 2001) provides a rich, multimedia environment where interaction and

collaboration between students can take place (Chandler, King, Duke-Williams, & Crellin,

2007). New and innovative opportunities for teaching and learning are offered by MUVEs

(Hetherington, Bonar-Law, Fleet, & Parkinson, 2008). MUVEs are primarily a synchronous 3D
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social platform, built on gamming technologies but operating without goals and objectives.

However all contents are created and owned by the user. These environments are increasingly

being used as a new and more advanced platform for 3/4D data visualization and e-learning by

educators all around the globe.

11. A Cloud-Oriented Green Computing Architecture for E-Learning Applications

Cloud computing is a highly scalable and cost-effective infrastructure for running Web applications. E-
learning or e-Learning is one of such Web application has increasingly gained popularity in the recent years,
as a comprehensive medium of global education system/training systems. The development of e-Learning
Application within the cloud computing environment enables users to access diverse software applications,
share data, collaborate more easily, and keep their data safely in the infrastructure. However, the growing
demand of Cloud infrastructure has drastically increased the energy consumption of data centers, which has
become a critical issue. High energy consumption not only translates to high operational cost, which reduces
the profit margin of Cloud providers, but also leads to high carbon emissions which is not environmentally
friendly. Hence, energy-efficient solutions are required to minimize the impact of Cloud-Oriented E-
Learning on the environment. E-learning methods have drastically changed the educational environment and
also reduced the use of papers and ultimately reduce the production of carbon footprint. E-learning
methodology is an example of Green computing. Thus, in this paper, it is proposed a Cloud-Oriented Green
Computing Architecture for eLearning Applications (COGALA). The e-Learning Applications using
COGALA can lower expenses, reduce energy consumption, and help organizations with limited IT
resources to deploy and maintain needed software in a timely manner. This paper also discussed the
implication of this solution for future research directions to enable Cloud-Oriented Green Computing
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12. Green IT as a tool for design cloud-oriented sustainable learning

environment of a higher education institution
Sustainable human development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction
of investments, the orientation of technological development of mankind and institutional changes agreed
with each other that strengthen the current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations [1, p.
7]. All these years, there has been ongoing work aimed at bringing to the world public an understanding of
the nature and magnitude of the danger, coordinating the activities of international organizations,
governments, non-governmental organizations, scientists in the search and implementation of effective
measures to reduce the level of global threats to humanity. To create conditions for sustainable development
for the country, it is necessary to focus on the implementation of such important components as: -
economical – represents the economical use of all types of resources aimed at reducing pressure on natural
ecosystems; - ecological – a series of actions that lead to the restoration of the original state of the
environment to a level that does not harm either human health or natural ecosystems and helps to maximize
improvement; - social – an integral part, which provides for the improvement of the quality of life of a
person, because the person acts as the main cause of changes occurring in society. According to the 2030
Sustainable Development Strategy of Ukraine, one of the goals of sustainable development is to provide
equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, which envisages ensuring
lifelong access to quality vocational and higher education for the whole population, significantly increase
the number of young and adult people who have the socially necessary skills, including vocational and
technical skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurial employment what activity [2]. At the
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same time, green information technology is a “set of approaches related to environmentally friendly
computing and information technology. It is the science and practice of designing, manufacturing, using and
utilizing computers, servers and their subsystems, such as monitors, printers, devices storage of data,
networks and communication systems – effectively and with minimal or zero environmental impact”

Sustainable computing in recent years increasingly involved scientists from around the world [4-17]. In
particular, V. Kharchenko and O. Illiashenko offers concepts of green IT engineering: taxonomy, principles,
and implementationPLC-oriented systems for data acquisition and supervisory control of
environmentfriendly energy-saving technologies [7], N. Boroujerdi and S. Nazem considering cloud
computing as changing cogitation about computing [8], V. Kharchenko, Y. Kondratenko, J. Kacprzyk offers
concepts, models, complex systems architectures, studies in systems, decision, and control of Green IT
engineering [9], Y. Kondratenko, V. Korobko, O. Korobko, G. Kondratenko, O. Kozlov considering Green
IT approach to design and optimization of thermoacoustic waste heat utilization plant-based on soft
computing [10]. Other scientists – J. Drozd, A. Drozd, S. Antoshchuk view resource-oriented approach of
Green IT engineering [11], V. Hahanov, E. Litvinova, S. Chumachenko offers green cyber-physical
computing as sustainable development model [12], N. Bardis view secure, green implementation of modular
arithmetic operations for IoT and cloud applications [13], and N. Doukas considering technologies for
Greener Internet of Things systems [14]. K. Palanivel and S. Kuppuswami in their study proposed a cloud-
oriented green computing architecture for e-learning applications: COGALA [15]. This is due to the fact that
the rapid development of cloud technologies in the future implies a lack of high-speed cloud-oriented
architectures for educational institutions [15]. They also offer their models of cloud-oriented e-learning
architecture (see Figure 1) and cloud-oriented green computing architecture for e-learning (see Figure 2)
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Figure 1 presents the architecture of an e-learning system based on a cloud-oriented architecture, according
to which the model is divided into three levels, including infrastructure, platforms, and applications. At the
infrastructure level, training resources from the traditional system are transferred to the cloud database
instead of the usual database. The platform level involves the use of a new e-learning system based on CMS
(Content Management System) and LMS (Learning Management System). These components are important
in the model because they are designed to mediate between a cloudoriented database and native applications.
Finally, the application layer was designed to interact with the client (student, teacher, administrator) [15].
K. Palanivel and S. Kuppuswami also propose a model of a cloud-oriented green computing architecture for
elearning (see Fig. 2) [15]. It is divided into four levels: the public cloud resource management layer and
containing the e-learning content/storage server on the e-learning accounting/metering server; level of
service; the level of software resources hosted in a private cloud consisting of a portal server and an e-
learning application server; application level, which is also hosted in a private cloud (at this level, users are
teachers, students, administrators) [15]. 3 Results However, the problem of creating a cloud-oriented
sustainable education environment for higher education institutions is nowadays needed to be addressed.
That is why the structure and functioning of the cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment higher
education institution that underlies the design of such an environment remain unexplored. According to the
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V. Yu. Bykov and V. H. Kremen, to design the learning environment means to theoretically investigate the
essential target and content-technological (methodical) aspects of the educational process which should be
carried out in the learning environment, and on this basis to describe the necessary for this purpose the
structure and structure of the learning environment (its statics and dynamics, including to predict and take
into account the development of the structure of the learning environment, the influence and peculiarities of
the relationship of the learning environment components with other elements of the environment, with the
elements of the environment) in accordance with the dynamics of the development of its goals creation and
use, and limitations of psychological and educational, scientific and resource nature [16, p. 7]. Summarizing
the above interpretation, it can be argued that the theoretical study of the learning environment is to create a
model that will provide an idea of the learning environment in which the cooperation and communication of
all participants in the educational process. Specialized platforms, such as LMS, are constantly being created
at the higher education institution to address the challenge of deploying higher education institution
education and training systems online and in designing a cloud-oriented learning environment. They are
used to develop, manage, and distribute educational online sharing materials. The materials are placed in a
learningenvironment with the definition of the sequence of their study. LMS is comprised of a variety of
individual tasks, small-group projects, and learning elements for all students, both content-oriented and
communicative. There are several training management systems that allow learning using the Internet. Thus,
the learning process can be done in real-time by organizing online lectures and seminars. LMS in the form
of use is conventionally divided into two types [17, p. 117]: 1.LMS as software that is intended for
installation on your own higher education institution servers. The use of LMS of this type implies receiving
an appropriate service from an IaaS cloud provider. The operation of such LMS requires the availability of
appropriate personnel and software. 2.LMS as a cloud platform created by a provider used by users to
manage the educational process. The use of LMS of this type involves obtaining an appropriate service from
an higher education institution using a SaaS cloud service model. Due to this, all the basic functions of
maintenance and technical support are assigned to a specific provider. As a result of our research, consider
that cloud LMS is a type of Green IT. After analyzing the main scientific papers on the subject, a
generalization and model of a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education
institution in the following form were summarized (see Fig. 3).
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Since learning environment “is an artificially constructed system, structure, and components which create
the conditions necessary to achieve the objectives of the educational process ... and learning environment
structure determines its internal organization, relationship and interdependence between its elements” [18, p.
3], then the proposed model (see Fig. 3) is oriented towards the achievement of the learning objectives,
which are reflected in the industry standards of higher education through all structural constituents of the
cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of the higher education institution.

To achieve the learning objectives, a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment in a higher education
institution should fulfill the following functions:

• management – management of the educational process of preparation of future professionals;

• organizational – organizing the actual learning process through the distribution of access rights and the
distribution of communities of entities;

• educational – submission of educational materials, as well as practical and laboratory work;

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• advisory – providing on-line consultations to students and groups of students;

• communication – the presence of subject-subject interaction, as well as the possibility of communication

between the subjects, which is also the implementation of a feedback mechanism;

• controlling – the availability of an electronic journal and the ability to evaluate works online;

• developmental – development of students’ information and communication competencies;

• systematic – systematization of materials. These functions are possible in the presence of the following
structural components of a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution.
The technological component is implemented through the use of a cloud-oriented learning management
system and combines managerial, organizational, content and methodical and communication components
that are interconnected with each other. A cloud-oriented learning management system will be understood to
mean a system that facilitates group collaboration between faculty and students, the development,
management, and dissemination of educational materials with the sharing of the educational process through
cloud technology. Consider in detail each of its components. The management component provides for the
use of cloud-oriented learning management tools and cloudoriented learning performance assessment tools
in the educational process of a higher education institution. Also within this component should be defined as
the disciplines provided by the curriculum of the relevant specialty. The cloud-oriented sustainable learning
environment of the institution of higher education provides great opportunities for control of students’
educational activities: laboratory work, testing, independent work, joint projects, control works, etc.
Organizational component. The successful functioning of a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment
in a higher education institution is possible provided that a logical distribution of user access rights is made.
The following users arehighlighted: admin; lecturer (including representatives of higher education institution
administration); students. Note that each user group has limited access rights to its own cloud-oriented
sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution. Students may have the opportunity to
read or edit a variety of teaching and teaching materials. Each teacher in the cloud-oriented sustainable
learning environment of the higher education institution is provided with his own cloud-oriented office,
where he can store all the necessary materials for successful and high-quality classes: educational and work
programs of disciplines, textbooks, manuals, lectures, laboratory materials, exam requirements, coursework
and diploma instruction, etc. With such advanced functionality, teachers can provide access to all the
necessary materials, allowing students to complete: joint projects, independent work, research work, etc. The
following types of documents should be developed, structured and made available to faculty members in a
cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment for higher education institutions: - regulatory documents
both at the national level and at the university level; - curricula for the preparation of future professionals; -
methodical recommendations on filling of educational-methodical complexes of disciplines. When
designing this component, it is necessary to take into account all the necessary components: the schedule of
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classes, terms of delivery of work, the plan of work of the department, faculty, announcements, discussions,
contacts, etc. And given the specifics of cloud technologies, it is advisable that a cloud-oriented sustainable
learning environment in a higher education institution also has internal communication tools (a kind of its
social network), a forum (to engage all subjects in the educational process). Also positive is the creation of
photo albums of groups, departments, which would contain materials of all events taking place in higher
education institution. In order to control the success and quality activities of teachers in the educational
process in the cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution, an
administration should be present. The administration controls: the conformity of the available subjects in the
cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution to the curricula for the
training of specialists in the relevant specialty, the conformity of the educational materials placed in such
environment to the curricula of all disciplines. This provides the opportunity: keep electronic journals;
testing, and assessment of knowledge on-line; and more. Content-methodical component. Learning
objectives affect the content of the training, which in combination influences the choice of tools, methods,
and forms of organization of education in higher education. The content of a cloud-oriented sustainable
learning environment of a higher education institution is in line with all concepts of education, industry
standards of higher education, curricula for the training of relevant specialists, educational and work
programs of the disciplines envisaged for mastering. In this case, each component of the methodological
system is divided into traditional and cloud-oriented components. It should be noted that cloud-oriented
learning tools complement the traditional higher education educational process. The use of cloud-oriented
learning tools facilitates the identification of traditional and cloud-oriented methods and forms of the
learning organization. By cloud-oriented methods and forms of training organization, we will understand
such methods and forms that are implemented in the educational process with the use of cloud ICT
infrastructure. Proper selection of modern methods, forms and tools of teaching (cloud-oriented and
traditional) in accordance with the goals of a certain discipline promotes the development of cognitive
abilities of students, the development of creative and logical thinking, the formation of skills to use the
acquired knowledge in practice, the formation of necessary professional competences, including information
and communication competence as a component of professional competence of future specialists for further
creative activity. This provides the opportunity: use on-line services for the educational process; possibility
of distance learning, library of books, textbooks, media files; file repositories and more. Communication
component. Communicating between subjects of training activities implemented directly with each other
and through cloudoriented communications in a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher
education institution. Important in the communication component is the selection of modes of
communication. According to V. Yu. Bykov, they are synchronous and asynchronous [19, p. 323]. The
synchronous mode of communication implies simultaneous interaction of the subjects of learning at one
time, and the asynchronous one assumes independence of the interaction time of the subjects of the
educational process. The successful and quality functioning cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment
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of a higher education institution should be provided both modes of communication. Considering the
interaction of the participants in the learning process in a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of
a higher education institution, it is first of all necessary to determine the subjects of interaction. In our case,
the subjects of interaction are the student, the teacher, and the scientific supervisor. It should be noted at the
outset that the scientific advisor is distinguished by a separate entity because the curricula of higher
education institutions include such types of work as the writing of coursework and diploma projects
(papers), in which the scientific supervisor plays a leading role. The subjects of interaction define the links
of interaction in the cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution, which

should include: student-student, student-teacher, teacherstudent-student, student-scientific supervisor. It

should be noted that the interaction of teacher-student-student is one of the defining elements in the
educational process of a higher education institution. After all, it depends on her interpersonal relationships
not only students but also students with the teacher. Different levels of interaction covering the various types
and forms of interaction. In particular, the following types of interaction are highlighted: individual activity,
group interaction, subgroup interaction, and couples interaction. In a cloud-oriented sustainable learning
environment of a higher education institution, students independently perform tasks (individual work),
perform joint projects, discuss problems (interaction in pairs, subgroups), use the process of learning
(interaction in pairs, subgroups, groups), communicate with each other (interaction in groups). The main
forms of interaction between the subjects of the educational process in such an environment include:
information, consultation, discussion, collaboration, webinar, learning materials, assessment of the
knowledge, and communication in groups. Forms and types of interaction are closely related. Teacher in a
cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment in a higher education institution can inform students about
a particular event, tools of adding news and calendar events; subgroups or groups of students. In particular,
the supervisor can inform students of the problem group about the extraordinary meeting, etc. Through
consultations, students can get answers to questions that interest them, whether from a teacher in a particular
subject or from a research supervisor for writing an article or coursework (diploma) project. Another
important form of interaction is the discussion, where students and the teacher (supervisor) are equal
subjects of learning, resulting in the formation of their own opinion and the opportunity to defend it in a
subgroup, group or team. This is also closely related to the form of group communication. Students can
communicate through correspondence, chats. In the process of performing laboratory work students often
need the help of classmates, teachers. In this case, cooperation is a profitable solution. In cooperation,
students develop such personal qualities as the ability to work in a team, sociability, etc. To conduct online
seminars for problem groups in such an environment is used webinar. This is quite a useful opportunity
during the holidays and quarantine. For successful mastering of the material, there is an opportunity to
receive educational materials (lectures, theoretical information, literature, etc.). It is also a form of
educational interaction, without which the learning process as a whole is not possible. Evaluation of
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knowledge – is a form of interaction between actors, which is not possible without learning. That is why in a
cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution, this form of interaction is
envisaged for further e-journaling and rating of a specific subject. It should be noted that the main tools of
communication are: dialogue, brainstorming, discussion, debate, debate, and their application transforms the
educational process into mutual learning, where the student and the teacher are equal subjects of learning.

The designed cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment of a higher education institution should
optimally address the challenges facing higher education institutions:

1. Planning of the educational process on different curricula and forms of study (full-time, part-time).

2. Organization of the educational process.

3. Organization of research work. 4. Submission of teaching materials.

5. Ensuring interaction between all participants of the educational process in the higher education institution.
6. Provision of information for teachers and students in various fields.

7. Ensuring the distribution of user access rights.

8. Organization of communities.

9. Ensuring that all necessary materials are shared.

10. Providing management of the educational process of preparation of future professionals.

Obviously, the main benefits of this environment for higher education institutions include: saving money on
purchasing licensed software and not just software (everyone can use Office technology online); reducing
the need for specially equipped premises; carrying out various types of educational work, control and
assessment of knowledge online; saving computer memory (disk space); antivirus security of the educational
environment; openness of the learning environment for teachers and students. The design and application of
a cloud-oriented sustainable learning environment with cloud LMS will provide such capabilities: keep
electronic journals; use on-line services for the educational process; conduct correspondence, testing, and
assessment of knowledge on-line; possibility of distance learning, library of books, manuals, textbooks,
media files; file repositories; conference video and more. And all of the above is the key to a sustainable
development of the learning environment
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13. A Cloud-Oriented Green Computing Architecture for E-Learning

Applications
Cloud Computing is a new paradigm that provides an appropriate pool of computing resources with its
dynamic scalability and usage of virtualized resources as a service through the Internet [Poonam (2014)].
The resources can be network servers, applications, platforms, infrastructure segments and services. Cloud
computing deliver services autonomously based on demand and provides sufficient network access, data
resource environment and effectual flexibility. This technology is used for more efficient and cost effective
computing by centralizing storage, memory, computing capacity of PC’s and servers. With the tremendous
advantages of cloud computing, this technology is revolutionized the field of e-learning education. The
educational cloud computing [Anjali (2013)] can focus the power of thousands of computers on one
problem, allowing researchers search and find models and make discoveries faster than ever. The
Educational Institutions can also open their technology infrastructures to private, public sectors for research
advancements. The role of cloud computing at Educational Institutions should not be underestimated as it
can provide important gains in offering direct access to a wide range of different academic resources,
research applications and educational tools. The architecture of an e-learning system [Palanivel (2014)]
developed as a distributed application, includes a client application, an application server and a database
server, beside the hardware to support it (client computer, communication infrastructure and servers). Cloud
computing is a highly scalable and cost-effective infrastructure for running HPC, enterprise and Web
applications .

However, the growing demand of Cloud infrastructure has drastically increased the energy consumption of
data centers, which has become a critical issue. With the growth of high speed networks over the last
decades, there is an alarming rise in its usage comprised of thousands of concurrent e-commerce transactions
and millions of Web queries a day. The use of large shared virtualized datacenters, Cloud computing can
offer large energy savings. Also, the Cloud services can also further increase the internet traffic and its
growing information database which could decrease such energy savings. Green computing is the
environmentally responsible use of computers and related resources (Kaur (2014). Such practices include the
implementation of energy-efficient Central Processing Units (CPUs), servers and peripherals as well as
reduced resource consumption and proper disposal of electronic waste (e-waste). The approaches to Green
Computing on Educational Institutions are power management, e-mail, on-line learning and energy/cost
saving measures. Many institutions have chosen to include information on their websites about green
computing efforts and how to reduce carbon footprints, Hence, energy efficient solutions are required to
ensure the environmental sustainability of this new computing paradigm. Green Cloud computing is
envisioned to achieve not only efficient processing and utilization of computing
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Cloud computing with increasingly pervasive front-end client devices interacting with back-end data centers
will cause an enormous escalation of energy usage. To address this problem, data center resources need to
be managed in an energy-efficient manner to drive CloudOriented Green computing

The energy efficiency of ICT has become a major issue with the growing demand of Cloud Computing.
Hence, the objective of this paper to propose a Cloud-Oriented Green Computing Architecture for e-
Learning Applications (COGALA). The COGALA Architecture for reducing the carbon footprint of Cloud
Computing in a wholesome manner without sacrificing the Quality such as performance, responsiveness and
availability offered by multiple Cloud providers. The COGALA consists of the client (e.g. can be an
University or an Educational Institution), a client-oriented green cloud middleware and the green broker.
The green cloud middleware provide the client a tool to better manage the distribution of tasks to cloud with
the least carbon emission (i.e. least power consumption) and other relevant decision criteria. The
middleware is composed of a user interface application and a windows service. This architecture is designed
such that it provides incentives to both users and providers to utilize and deliver the most “Green” services
respectively. Also, it addresses the environmental problem from the overall usage of Cloud Computing
resources. This article is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces about various technical details that
required to write this paper. Section 3 surveyed various architectures such as service-oriented, cloud-
oriented and Green-Oriented. The proposed architecture is depicted in section 4 and finally section 5
concludes this paper.

II. BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY This section introduces Cloud Computing and its deployment/service
models, impact of E-learning Cloud Computing, Cloud Computing and energy usage, various energy
efficiency models and finally Green Computing in eLearning applications. A. Cloud Computing Cloud
computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be
rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction [Peter
(2011)]. The characteristics of Clouds include on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource
pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. The available service models are classified as Software-asa-
Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service(PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS is the supply of Hardware as a service (HaaS), that is, servers, net
technology, storage or computation, as well as basic characteristics such as Operating Systems and
virtualization of hardware resources [Hurwitz 2010]. Making an analogy with a monocomputer system, the
IaaS will correspond to the hardware of such a computer together with the Operating System that take care
of the management of the hardware resources and ease the access to them.

• Platform as a Service (PaaS): At the PaaS level, the provider supplies more than just infrastructure, i.e. an
integrated set of software with all the stuff that a developer needs to build applications, both for the
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developing and for the execution stages. In this manner, a PaaS provider does not provide the infrastructure
directly, but making use of the services of an IaaS it presents the tools that a developer needs, having an
indirect access to the IaaS services and, consequently, to the infrastructure [Hurwitz 2010].

• Software as a Service (SaaS): In the last level we may find the SaaS, i.e. to offer software as a service. It
has its origins in the host operations carried out by the Application Service Provider. Cloud computing is
offering on-demand services to end users. Clouds are deployed on physical infrastructure where Cloud
middleware is implemented for delivering service to customers. Such an infrastructure and middleware
differ in their services, administrative domain and access to users. Therefore, the Cloud deployments are
classified mainly into three types: Public Cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud.

• Public Clouds - Public Cloud is the most common deployment model where services are available to
anyone on Internet. Some of the famous public Clouds are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google
AppEngine, and Microsoft Azure. Public Cloud offers very good solutions to the customers having small
enterprise or with infrequent infrastructure usage, since these Clouds provide a very good option to handle
peak loads on the local infrastructure and for an effective capacity planning

• Private Clouds - The private Clouds are deployed within the premise of an organization to provide IT
services to its internal users. The private Cloud services offer greater control over the infrastructure,
improving security and service resilience because its access is restricted to one or few organizations. Such
private deployment poses an inherent limitation to end user applications i.e. inability to scale elastically on
demand as can be done using pubic Cloud services.

• Hybrid Clouds - Hybrid Clouds is the deployment which emerged due to diffusion of both public and
private Clouds‟ advantages. In this model, organizations outsource non-critical information and processing
to the public Cloud, while keeping critical services and data in their control.
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• The Community Cloud - In the community deployment model, the cloud infrastructure is shared by several
organizations with the same policy and compliance considerations. This helps to further reduce costs as
compared to a private cloud, as it is shared by larger group.

Cloud-Oriented e-Learning Cloud

computing has a significant impact on teaching and learning environment [Fern (2012)]. It is highly
practical in education for both students and teachers. The cloud based environment supports the creation of
new generation of elearning systems. In traditional web-based learning model, educational institutions invest
a huge amount of money on hardware and software applications, infrastructure, maintenance and the
appropriate training of staff to enable them to use technology effectively. However, in cloud based e-
learning model, educational institutions without any infrastructure investments can get powerful software
with lower or no up-front costs and fewer management headaches in the classroom. The development of e-
Learning services within the cloud computing environment enables users to access diverse software
applications, share data, collaborate more easily, and keep their data safely in the infrastructure. Moreover, it
can lower expenses, reduce energy consumption, and help organizations with limited IT resources to deploy
and maintain needed software in a timely manner.

Figure 1 shows architecture for e-learning system that the cloud-oriented architecture [Manop (2012)]
separate into three layers includes infrastructure, platform and application. On Infrastructure layer, the
learning resources from the traditional system are transferred to the cloud database instead of the usual
DBMS. Whereas on Platform layer, a new elearning system that consists of the CMS, AMS, and other
service components were developed. These components were developed to be the intermediary between
cloud database and the applications. Finally on application layer, web application were developed for
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interacting with the student's client. As the adoption of cloud computing increases, many academic
institutions are introducing cloud computing technologies into their education systems, promising and
delivering more scalable and reliable education services. Many Educational Institutions have acknowledged
the potential benefits of leveraging cloud computing for economic reasons, as well as for more advanced
teaching and data sharing [Mircea (2011)]. A number of studies were conducted to investigate the benefits
of using cloud computing for e-Learning systems [Pocatilu (2009), Pocatilu (2010), Bora (2013)] and to
suggest solutions for cloud computing-based e-learning systems [Masud (2012), Masud (2012), Bora (2013),
Zoube (2010)]. Pocatilu (2010) presented cloud computing advantages for e-Learning as being low cost with
higher data security, virtualization, centralized data storage, and the possibility of monitoring data access.
There are numerous advantages when the e-learning is implemented with the cloud computing technology,
they are low cost, improved performance, instant software update, Improved document format compatibility,
Benefits for students and teachers, data security, etc. C. e-Learning Data Centers Figure 2 shows an end user
accessing Cloud services such as SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS over Internet. User data pass from his own device
through an Internet service providers’ router, which in turn connects to a Gateway router within a Cloud
datacenter. Within datacenters, data goes through a local area network and are processed on virtual
machines, hosting Cloud services, which may access storage servers. Each of these computing and network
devices that are directly accessed to serve Cloud users contribute to energy consumption. In addition, within
a Cloud datacenter, there are many other devices, such as cooling and electrical devices, that consume
power. These devices even though do not directly help in providing Cloud service, are the major
contributors to the power consumption of a Cloud datacenter.

User/Cloud Software Applications - The Cloud computing can be used for running e-Learning applications
owned by individual user or offered by the Cloud provider using SaaS. Here, e-Learning applications are
long running with high CPU and memory requirements then its execution will result in high energy
consumption. Thus, energy consumption will be directly proportional to the e-Learning application’s profile
which will result in much higher energy consumption than actually required. Cloud Software Stack - The
Cloud software stack leads to an extra overhead in execution of end user or learners applications. For
instance, it is well known that a physical eLearning applications server has higher performance efficiency
than a virtual machine and IaaS providers offer generally access to a virtual machine to its end users
[Cherkasova (2005)]. Network Devices - In Cloud computing, since resources are accessed through Internet,
both applications and data are needed to be transferred to the compute node. In e-Learning applications, if
data is really large, then it may turn out to be cheaper and more carbon emission efficient to send the data by
mail than to transfer through Internet. The energy consumption of these devices remains almost the same
during both peak time and idle state. Datacenter - A cloud datacenter could comprise of many hundreds or
thousands of networked computers with their corresponding storage and networking subsystems, power
distribution and conditioning equipment, and cooling infrastructures. These datacenters can consume
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massive energy consumption and emit large amount of carbon. Thus, to achieve the maximum efficiency in
power consumption and CO2 emissions, each of these devices need to be designed and used efficiently
while ensuring that their carbon footprint is reduced. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) [Rawson (2008)] is
a key factor in achieving the reduction in power consumption of a datacenter is to calculate how much
energy is consumed in cooling and other overheads. PUE of datacenter can be useful in measuring power
efficiency of datacenters and thus provide a motivation to improve its efficiency.

13.1 Cloud Computing Energy Usage Model

The emergence of Cloud computing is rapidly changing this ownership-based approach to subscription-
oriented approach by providing access to scalable infrastructure and services on-demand. It offers enormous
amount of compute power to organizations which require processing of tremendous amount of data
generated almost every day. The Cloud Computing model is for where the data is to be distributed, so that
knowledge resources will be used by all sorts of user in the education streams. Clouds are essentially
virtualized datacenters and applications offered as services on a subscription basis. They require high energy
usage for its operation [Bianchini (2004)]. For a datacenter, the energy cost is a significant component of its
operating and up-front costs. Thus, energy consumption and carbon emission by Cloud infrastructures has
become a key environmental concern. The traditional data centers running Web applications are often
provisioned to handle sporadic peak loads, which can result in low resource utilization and wastage of
energy. Cloud datacenter, on the other hand, can reduce the energy consumed through server consolidation,
whereby different workloads can share the same physical host using virtualization and unused servers can be
switched off. Even the most efficiently built datacenter with the highest utilization rates will only mitigate,
rather than eliminate, harmful CO2 emissions. The reason given is that Cloud providers are more interested
in electricity cost reduction rather than carbon emission. The Figure 3 shows that cloud and environmental
sustainability.
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. Cloud-Oriented Green Computing E-learning methods have drastically changed the educational
environment and also reduced the use of papers and ultimately reduce the production of carbon footprint.
Elearning methodology is an example of Green computing. Cloud –Oriented Green Computing points to a
processing infrastructure that combines flexibility, service quality, and reduced use of energy. Energy crisis
fuels green computing, and green computing needs algorithms and mechanisms to be redesigned for energy
efficiency. There is a need to use computing resources efficiently, effectively and economically. The various
approaches to green information technology are virtualization, power management, Materials Recycling and
Telecommuting. It is necessary to significantly reduce pollution and substantially lower power consumption.
The technology for energy efficient Clouds is “Virtualization,” which allows significant improvement in
energy efficiency of Cloud providers by leveraging the economies of scale associated with large number of
organizations sharing the same infrastructure [Smith (2003)]. By consolidation of underutilized servers in
the form of multiple virtual machines sharing same physical server at higher utilization, companies can gain
high savings in the form of space, management, and energy

Cloud computing, being an emerging technology also raises significant questions about its environmental
sustainability. Through the use of large shared virtualized datacenters Cloud computing can offer large
energy savings. However, Cloud services can also further increase the internet traffic and its growing
information database which could decrease such energy savings. With energy shortages and global climate,
the power consumption of data centers has become a key issue. Thus, there is a need of green cloud
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computing solutions that cannot only save energy, but also reduce operational costs. The underlying physical
computing servers provide hardware infrastructure for creating virtualized resources to meet service
demands. The key factors that have enabled the Cloud computing to lower energy usage and carbon
emissions from ICT are dynamic provisioning, multi-tenancy, server utilization and data center efficiency
[Accenture (2010)]. Due to these Cloud features, organizations can reduce carbon emissions by moving their
applications to the Cloud. These savings are driven by the high efficiency of large scale Cloud data centers.
Improving the resource utilization and reduce power consumption are key challenges to the success of
operating a cloud computing environment. To address such challenges, it is proposed to design the Green -
Cloud architecture for data center such e-Learning. The Figure 4 shows the Cloud-Oriented Green
Computing Architecture. In Green -Cloud computing infrastructure, there are four main entities involved
and they are Consumers/Brokers, Green Resource Allocator, Virtual Machines (VMs) and Physical
Machines.

• The Cloud consumers or their brokers submit service requests from anywhere in the world to the Cloud. It
is important to notice that there can be a difference between Cloud consumers and users of deployed
services.
• The Green Resource Allocator acts as the interface between the Cloud infrastructure and consumers. It
requires the interaction of the following components to support energy-efficient resource management.
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Multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) can be dynamically started and stopped on a single physical machine to
meet accepted requests, hence providing maximum flexibility to configure various partitions of resources on
the same physical machine to different specific requirements of service requests. Multiple VMs can also
concurrently run applications based on different operating system environments on a single physical
machine. The objective of this paper is to design a Cloud-Oriented Green Computing Architecture for e-
Learning Applications. Hence, it is proposed to review existing works in the area of architecture of Cloud
Computing, Green Computing and both.
This section review existing works in the area of Cloud Computing architecture and Green Computing
architecture and energy efficiency. Service Oriented Cloud Computing Architecture (Lohm 2013) is used to
transfer E-learning into the cloud. These architectures cover challenges of e-learning such as scalability,
application development, efficient use of resources, saving expense, and security. Engin (2013) presented
some possible cloud solutions in elearning environments by emphasizing its pros and cons. It is of
paramount importance to choose the most suitable cloud model for an e-learning application or an
educational organization in terms of scalability, portability and security. We distinguish various deployment
alternatives of cloud computing and discuss their benefits against typical e-learning requirements.
Developments in computing are influencing many aspects of education. The purpose Faten (2013) is to
assess the potential value of cloud computing as a platform for elearning. In particular, the paper will discuss
how cloud computing is different from other forms of computing and what makes it unique. As well is this,
the potential advantages and disadvantages of using cloud computing as a platform for e-learning will be
outlined. Finally, the requirements of implementing cloud computing will be discussed, along with an
assessment of the challenges to implementation, and some potential ways to overcome them. Cloud
computing has attracted a great deal of attention in the education sector as a way of delivering more
economical, securable, and reliable education services. (Ji 2013) proposed and introduces a cloud-based
smart education system for elearning content services with a view to delivering and sharing various
enhanced forms of educational content, including text, pictures, images, videos, 3-dimensional (3D) objects,
and scenes of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Tomm (2012) presented the real-time
virtualized Cloud infrastructure that was developed in the context of the IRMOS European Project. The
paper shows how different concepts, such as real-time scheduling, QoS-aware network protocols, and
methodologies for stochastic modelling and run-time provisioning were practically combined to provide
strong performance guarantees to soft real-time interactive applications in a Virtualized environment. The
efficiency of the IRMOS Cloud is demonstrated by two real interactive e Learning applications, an e-
Learning mobile content delivery applications and a virtual world e-Learning applications. Anwar (2012)
introduced the characteristics of the current E-Learning and then analyses the concept of cloud computing
and describes the architecture of cloud computing platform by combining the features of E-Learning. The
authors have tried to introduce cloud computing to e-learning, build an elearning cloud, and make an active
research and exploration for it from the following aspects: architecture, construction method and external
interface with the model. Green Computing or Green IT refers to the study and practice of using computing
resources in an eco-friendly manner in order to tone down the environmental impacts of computing. It is the
practice of using computing resources in an energy efficient and environmentally friendly manner. Shalabh
(2013) discussed how Green Computing can be incorporated into different institutions, corporate/business
sectors or may be in various IT companies. To reduce unnecessary energy consumption due to hazardous
materials has become a major topic of concern today.

As new distributed computing technologies like Clouds become increasingly popular, the dependence on
power also increases. The majority of the energy used in today’s society is generated from fossil fuels which
produce harmful CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to enhance the efficiency and potential
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sustainability of large data centers. Therefore, there is a need to create an efficient Cloud computing system
that utilizes the strengths of the Cloud while minimizing its energy and environmental footprint. In order to
correctly and completely unify a Green aspect to the next generation of Distributed Systems, a green-
oriented architecture is needed. Challenges in Cloud-Oriented E-Learning With the huge growth of the
number of students, education contents, services that can be offered and resources made available, e-
Learning system dimensions grow at an exponential rate. The challenges regarding this topic about
optimizing resource computation, storage and communication requirements, energy efficiency and dealing
with dynamic concurrency requests highlight the necessity of the use of a platform that meets scalable
demands and cost control. From the above study of current efforts in making Cloud computing energy
efficient, it shows that even though researchers have made various components of Cloud efficient in terms of
power and performance, still they lack a unified picture. Cloud providers, being profit oriented, are looking
for solutions which can reduce the power consumption and thus, carbon emission without hurting their
market. Therefore, it is provided provide a unified solution to enable e-Learning using Green Cloud
Computing.

13.2COGALA Architecture
The COGALA architecture can be divided into the following layers:
• Infrastructure layer as a dynamic and scalable physical host pool, software resource layer that offers a
unified interface for e-learning developers, resource management layer that achieves loose coupling of
software and hardware resources, service layer, containing three levels of services (software as a service,
platform as a service and infrastructure as a service), application layer that provides with content production,
content delivery, virtual laboratory, collaborative learning, assessment and management features.
• Infrastructure layer is composed of information infrastructure and teaching resources. Information
infrastructure contains Internet/Intranet, system software, information management system and some
common software and hardware; teaching resources is accumulated mainly in traditional teaching model and
distributed in different departments and domain. This layer is located in the lowest level of cloud service
middleware, the basic computing power like physical memory, CPU, memory is provided by the layer.
Through the use of virtualization technology, physical server, storage and network form virtualization group
for being called by upper software platform. The physical host pool is dynamic and scalable, new physical
host can be added in order to enhance physical computing power for cloud middleware services
Software Resource Layer mainly is composed by operating system and middleware. Through middleware
technology, a variety of software resources are integrated to provide a unified interface for software
developers, so they can easily develop a lot of applications based on software resources and embed them in
the cloud, making them available for cloud computing users
• Resource Management Layer is the key to achieve loose coupling of software resources and hardware
resources. Through integration of virtualization and cloud computing scheduling strategy, on-demand
free flow and distribution of software over various hardware resources can be achieved.
• Service layer has three levels of services namely, SaaS (Software as a service), Paas (Platform as a
service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a service). In SaaS, cloud computing service is provided to customers. As is
different from traditional software, users use software via the Internet, not to need a one-time purchase for
software and hardware, and not to need to maintain and upgrade, simply paying a monthly fee.
• Application layer is the specific application of integration the teaching resources in the cloud computing
model, including interactive courses and sharing the teaching resources. The interactive programs are mainly
for the teachers, according to the learners and teaching needs, taken full advantage of the underlying
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information resources after finishing made, and the course content as well as the progress may at any time
adjust according to the feedback, and can be more effectiveness than traditional teaching. Sharing of
teaching resources include teaching material resources, teaching information resources (such as digital
libraries, information centers), as well as the full sharing of human resources. This layer mainly consists of
content production, educational objectives, content delivery technology, assessment and management
component.

In the COGALA architecture, learners/teachers submit their Cloud service requests through a new
middleware Green Broker that manages the selection of the greenest Cloud provider to serve the user’s
request. A learner/teacher service request can be of three types i.e., software, platform or infrastructure. The
Cloud providers can register their services in the form of green offers‟ to a public directory which is
accessed by Green Broker. The green offers consist of green services, pricing and time when it should be
accessed for least carbon emission. Green Broker gets the current status of energy parameters for using
various Cloud services from Carbon Emission Directory. The Carbon Emission Directory maintains all the
data related to energy efficiency of Cloud service.
This data may include PUE and cooling efficiency of Cloud datacenter which is providing the service, the
network cost and carbon emission rate of electricity, Green Broker calculates the carbon emission of all the
Cloud providers who are offering the requested Cloud service. Then, it selects the set of services that will
result in least carbon emission and buy these services on behalf users. The COGALA architecture is
designed such that it keeps track of overall energy usage of serving a user request. It relies on two main
components, Carbon Emission and Green Cloud offers, which keep track of energy efficiency of each Cloud
provider and also give incentive to Cloud providers to make their service “Green”. From user side, the
Green Broker plays a crucial role in monitoring and selecting the Cloud services based on the user QoS
requirements, and ensuring minimum carbon emission for serving a user. In general, a user can use Cloud to
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access any of these three types of services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS), and therefore process of serving them
should also be energy efficient. Cloud Computing use latest technologies for IT and cooling systems to have
most energy efficient infrastructure. By using virtualization and consolidation, the energy consumption is
further reduced by switching-off unutilized server. Various energy meters and sensors are installed and
calculated the current energy efficiency of each service.

14. Green Cloud Architecture to E-Learning Solutions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been looking for new ways to respond to the changing
professional field (Mircea, M. & Andreescu, A. I. 2011). The traditional teaching will be substituted by
individual project-orientated and self-organized learning. The modern educational methods enable selfpaced
and self-directed learning with flexibility on time and site. The existing concept of self-contained study
courses will be replaced by the concept of continuing professional development. In an age determined to
generate new paths to quality education, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) brings
forward countless benefits, enabling learners with the right skill. ICT makes many ordinary tasks
uncomplicated and facilitates communications from virtually any part of the globe. ICT in education has
been linked with a shift in the quality of people’s lives by improving teaching and learning. This is why a
number of educational institutions are increasingly integrating ICT in their education system. Through this
unique teaching method, learners gain a genuine learning experience, collaboratively constructing their own
knowledge and applying their learning’s in a real-world context.

The world has entered into the digital age, and technology has touched every part of human life, whether it is business,
communication, travel, health, or education. The global education system has taken it hands-on and the implications of
advanced technology have created wonders in this field. The increasing influence of technology in education is
offering us a glimpse into a gradually evolving realm of unconstrained learning. Education with the help of technology
has crossed borders and has opened up a world of opportunities for learners. From easy sharing of information to
collaboration with the help of email and cloud applications to instant access to learning programmes anytime and
anywhere. Intentional use of electronic media and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in teaching
and learning process is referred to as electronic learning or e-learning. It can also be described by many other terms
including online learning, virtual learning, distributed learning, network, and webbased learning. e-Learning includes
all educational activities carried out by individuals/groups working online/offline and synchronously/asynchronously
through network/standalone computers and electronic devices. The components of e-Learning can include the content
of multiple formats, management of the learning experience, and an online community of learners, content developers,
and experts. The main advantages of e-Learning are flexibility, convenience, easy accessibility, consistency, and its
repeatability. With Information Technologies (IT), there is a growing trend regarding the research and exploitation of
this kind of e-Learning platforms. As the development of technology grows, e-Learning helps students in their studies
in an easy manner, anytime and anywhere. e-Learning has become a popular and acceptable way to study due to its
flexibility and better innovativeness regarding the introduction of new/contemporary programs as compared to
traditional faculty. In e-Learning platforms (Fernandez, A. Peralta, D. Herrera, F. & Benıtez, J. M. 2012), the demand
of the teaching resources usually vary in a dynamic and very quick way and presents high peaks of activity. To attend
requests during these periods without other system services to be resented, it will be necessary to prepare a quite
superior infrastructure than that required for the regular working of the learning institution. An alternative would be to
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provide those services depending on the demand and only paying for the resources that are actually used. The solution
to these necessities is the Cloud Computing environment. Additionally, the e-learning platforms of the large
dimensions that we mentioned above generate extensive registers of interaction among students-platform-teachers.

Cloud Computing may promote a new era of learning taking the advantage of hosting the e-Learning applications
(Karim, F. & Goodwin, R. 2013) on a cloud and following its virtualization features of the hardware, it reduces the
construction and maintenance cost of the learning resources. Improved IT capabilities and enterprise infrastructure at
HEIs are needed to create a successful digital learning experience. The biggest advantage of cloud technologies is that
they create a centralized repository of knowledge for students and teachers to access. This is taking the student-teacher
collaboration beyond traditional classroom interaction.

Cloud-based technology in education has become such a phenomenon since it ensures sustained academic learning
irrespective of the student’s geographical positioning. Moreover, it ensures that the desired data is centrally available
for processing and deriving deeper insights for a more effective learning experience. Cloud-based technology also
enables educators to boost their reach without making any significant infrastructural spends. This, in turn, benefits
end-users by reducing the cost of services, while simultaneously adding value to their education. Cloud computing is
an evolving paradigm which is enabling outsourcing of all IT needs such as storage, computation, and software
through the Internet. Cloud computing is also called “Cloud” since a Cloud is a market-oriented distributed
computing system consisting of a collection of interconnected and virtualized computers that are dynamically
provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resource(s) based on service-level agreements
established through negotiation between the service provider and consumers.

Cloud computing is mainly composed of three layers which cover all the computing stack of a system. Each of these
layers offers a different set of services – Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to end users (Xhafa, F. & Bessis, N. 2014). Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a
software delivery model providing on-demand access to applications. SaaS providers maintain the customer data and
configure the applications according to customer need. Examples are scientific applications, social networking,
gaming, CRM and ERP applications. Multi-tenancy is another feature of SaaS, allowing providers to outsource the
effort of managing large hardware infrastructure, maintaining and upgrading applications, and optimizing resources by
sharing the costs among the large user base. Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers Cloud users a development platform
to build their applications. PaaS offers only the user-level middleware, which allows the development and deployment
of applications on Cloud infrastructure. PaaS offerings provide developers and architects with services and APIs
helping them to simplify delivering of elastically scalable and highly available Cloud applications. Examples are
Google AppEngine (Google App Engine. 2010), Aneka (Vecchiola, C, Chu, X. & Buyya, R. 2009), and Microsoft
Azure (Microsoft Azure. 2011). Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) consists of virtual machines or physical machines,
storage, and clusters. The IaaS guarantees runtime environment customization, application isolation, accounting and
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quality of service. Depending on the end user needs, the virtualized infrastructure is pre-configured with storage and
programming environment, what saves time for users who do not need to build their system from scratch. The cloud
physical resources are storage, virtualized, clusters, servers, network, etc. The above models provide a different level
of manageability and customization for your solution.

Cloud computing is deployed on physical infrastructure where Cloud middleware is implemented for delivering
service to customers. Therefore, the Cloud deployments are classified mainly into three types: public cloud, private
cloud, and hybrid cloud, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates the essential characteristics, the delivery, and
deployment models of cloud computing. Public Cloud is available to the end users (customers) on the Internet. It
offers very good solutions to the customers having small enterprise or with infrequent infrastructure usage since these
Clouds provide a very good option to handle peak loads on the local infrastructure and for an effective capacity
planning. A public Cloud can offer IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services. Examples of public Clouds are Amazon Web
Services, Google AppEngine, and Microsoft Azure. Private Cloud is deployed within the premise of an organization to
provide IT services to its internal users. It offers greater control over the infrastructure, improving security and service
resilience because its access is restricted to one or few organizations. Such private deployment poses an inherent
limitation to end-user applications i.e. inability to scale elastically on demand, as can be done using public Cloud
services. Hybrid Cloud is the deployment, which emerged due to diffusion of both public and private clouds. In this
model, organizations outsource non-critical information and processing to the public Cloud, while keeping critical
services and data in their control. These services are temporarily leased in peak load times and then released. The
hybrid Cloud applies to services related to IT infrastructure rather than software services. The above model is opted to
facilitate the choice of the appropriate deployment models of cloud computing for the ones with the most business-
critical features.

Cloud-Based E-Learning Cloud-based e-Learning (A. Peralta, D. Herrera, F. & Benıtez, J. M. 2012), can be viewed as
education SaaS and IaaS. It lessens the burden of maintenance and support from the educational institution to the
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vendor. It is allowing them to focus on their core business, also obtaining the latest updates of the system without
charges and sharing key resources.

From the SaaS perspective, the cloud-based e-Learning offers the following:

• The learner’s registration application provides to register their applications.

• The learning application deploys the subscribed learning contents to the learners.

• It allows centralized learners account management for the authorized learners.

• It provides the subscribed learning contents and manages the subscription of the learning contents. From the IaaS
perspective, the cloud-based e-Learning offers the following:

• It manages the learning contents storage for the learning system and the users.

• It balance load for all e-Learning systems in a distributed environment.

• It backup and restore for the e-Learning applications.

Nowadays, e-Learning is broadly used on unlike educational levels: constant education, training, educational courses,
etc. There are different e-learning solutions (Pocatilu, P. 2010; Pocatilu, P. Alecu, F. & Vetrici, M. 2009) from an
open source to business. With the huge growth of the number of students, education contents, services that can be
offered and resources made available, e-Learning solutions dimensions grow at an exponential rate. The challenges are
optimizing resource computation, content storage, communication requirements, dealing scalable demands and cost
control. Cloud-based e-Learning promotes a new era of learning taking the advantage of hosting the e-Learning
applications on a Cloud, virtualization features of the hardware, reducing the construction and maintenance cost of the
learning resources. Cloud-based e-Learning offers several benefits - the reduced costs, anytime and anywhere for the
convenience of the learners. The learning content is easy to keep updated and the teacher or content creators may
incorporate multimedia content to provide a friendly framework and to ease the understanding of the concepts.
However, currently, Cloud-based e-Learning solutions are still weak on scalability at the infrastructure level. Several
HEIs do not include the resources and infrastructure required to run the top e-learning solution.

Figure 2 illustrates the cloud computing model to e-Learning solutions. Each component is encapsulated and only
connected to the middleware, which, in turn, exchanges contents and metadata in standardized formats via
standardized interfaces. The Components and standards are described in turn. The Learning App plays a key role in
the e-Learning infrastructure. It is the entry point for learners to access courses, learning objects and lecture dates as
well as to get recommendations for the next best contents to be learned and tracks all relevant learners interactions. It
is a responsive Web application capable of being displayed on regular modern desktop Web environments,
smartphones, and tablets. The application gives everywhere and every time access to all learning objects offered in the
taken courses.
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The layered architecture provides flexibility in managing functionalities at individual layers. However, managing the
complexity of various layers and integrating outputs from one layer to other requires rigorous management of tasks at
various layers. Accessing learning object from different distributed repositories is required but usually, these
distributed learning object sources may have different technological infrastructures including proprietary systems,
desktop-based systems, web services, grids, clouds, and non-standardized data models, which make this task more
challenging and requires rigorous analysis for data (learning object) accessibility, harmonization and transformation
and compliance to policy requirements. To enable various stakeholders to visually design workflows, to compose and
bind services for execution, to identify data sources and to execute these workflows in a cloud environment.

The cloud environment underpins the making of a new era of e-Learning frameworks. In conventional electronic
learning model, instructive establishments contribute a tremendous measure of cash on equipment and programming
applications, foundation, support and the fitting preparing of staff to empower them to utilize innovation successfully.
In cloud computing e-Learning model, instructive foundations with no base speculations can get capable programming
with lower or no in advance expenses and fewer administration migraines in the classroom. Cloud registering
significantly affects educating and learning environment (Fern. 2012). It is very reasonable in instruction for both
understudies and instructors.
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The advancement of e-Learning administrations empowers clients to get to assorted programming applications, share
information, work together more effectively, and keep their information securely in the framework. Besides, it can
bring down costs, diminish vitality utilization, and assist associations with restricted IT assets with deploying and keep
up required programming in an auspicious way. The e-Learning architecture using cloud computing is shown in
Figure 3. This e-Learning architecture can be divided into learning software layer, learning infrastructure layer and
learning infrastructure layer. Learning software (SaaS) layer provides with learning content production, learning
content delivery, virtual laboratory, collaborative learning, assessment, and management features. The learning
software layer is the specific learning applications of integration the teaching resources in the cloud computing model,
including interactive courses and sharing the teaching resources. This layer mainly consists of learning content
production, educational objectives, content delivery technology, assessment, and management component. Learning
platform layer (PaaS) layer mainly is composed of the operating system and middleware. Through middleware
technology, a variety of software resources are integrated to provide a unified interface for software developers, so
they can easily develop a lot of applications based on software resources and embed them in the cloud, making them
available for cloud computing users. Learning infrastructure layer (IaaS) layer is composed of information
infrastructure and teaching resources. Information infrastructure contains Internet (public cloud)/ Intranet (private
cloud), system software, information management system and some common software and hardware. The teaching
resources are accumulated mainly in the traditional teaching model and distributed in different departments and
domain.

This layer is located in the lowest level of cloud service middleware (learning platform layer). The basic computing
power like physical memory, CPU, memory is provided by the layer. With virtualization technology, physical server,
storage and network form virtualization group for being called by an upper software platform. The physical host pool
is dynamic and scalable, the new physical host can be added in order to enhance physical computing power for cloud
middleware services. The intended advantages derived from the cloud computing e-Learning architecture are powerful
computing and storage capacity, high availability, high security and virtualization. The major advantage of the
proposal is that it aims at providing easy access to costly e-Learning software running on high-performance processors
to rural students at institutions, which lack considerable facilities. This smart learning environment (Jeong, J.S. Kim,
M. & Yoo, K.H. 2013) is to provide a reusable generic infrastructure for various users with different client devices, for
different courses covering several topics without any restrictions. While users are still managed in the LMS, learning
objects are stored only once in a repository and can be shared by and accessed from various LMSs.
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15. CONCLUSION
Green Computing or Green Technology should be practiced in the best possible way to tone down the climatic
changes and increase the eco-friendliness on earth. The potential approaches to Green computing are power
management, energy efficiency, working online, e-mail, virtualization, and cloud computing. For the success of the
green initiatives taken in Higher Education Institutes, awareness and proper implementation of the concepts should be
taking place. There is also a need to make individuals, students and management aware of the benefits of Green
Computing in terms of sustainability and cost savings through different programmes. The primary objective of the IT
policy makers in Higher Educational Institutes should be spreading the awareness about sustainable computing and
implementation of green computing initiatives. However, green practices should be inculcated within the students so
that they can put it in practice in their future endeavors. Based on the results of the analysis of the digitizing archive
application that has been done in terms of data and procedures, digitizing archive applications can significantly reduce
the use of paper in various college activities. Archive digitizing application as an integrated client server application
can display and deliver all documents that have been digitalized to all users depending on the access rights granted to
each user, so that the use of paper as a medium for delivering information can be minimized and the problem of
document access security can be more guaranteed.

The use of ICT techniques in teaching and learning has a very positive influence on a student’s learning capabilities as
well. It is established that students reflect in a very positive manner towards work and education when they are using
computers to complete tasks given to them, encouraging and motivating them to soak in the knowledge. Students or
learners who used technology to learn in educational institutions have self-esteem and self-confidence. Education with
the help of technology has crossed borders and has opened up a world of opportunities for learners. From easy sharing
of information to collaboration with the help of e-Mail and cloud applications to instant access to learning
programmes anytime, anywhere. The technologies that alter the education sector are virtual reality, gamification, data
analytics, cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. Cloud computing platform enables
enterprises or educational institutions to consolidate computing resources, reduce management complexity and speed
the response to business dynamics. Improving resource utilization and reduce power consumption are key challenges
to the success of operating a cloud computing environment. To address such challenges, it is designed the Green cloud
architecture to e-Learning systems. Green cloud [Kaur, G. & Kumar, P, (2013)] computing is envisioned to achieve
not only efficient processing and utilization of computing infrastructure, but also minimize energy consumption. It is
essential for ensuring that the future growth of Cloud computing is sustainable. Hence, the objective of this chapter is
to design a Green cloud architecture to e-Learning solutions. The proposed Green cloud architecture to e-Learning
solutions helps to decrease the energy consumption of Clouds without affecting the service providers’ objectives. This
architecture is designed in a way to provide incentives to both e-Learning users and providers in order to utilize and
deliver the greenest services respectively. The Green cloud architecture provides the security and quality of service to
the clients. This architecture includes emission directory, which measures the best suitable service, which gives less
carbon emission so straight away it indicates that energy will also decrease energy consumption. Therefore, Green
cloud architecture reduces unnecessary power consumption in an e-Learning environment. This chapter is sorted out
as takes after: Section 2 presents about different specialized points of interest that required composing this chapter.
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Section 3 studied different designs, for example, benefit arranged, cloud-situated and Green-oriented. The proposed
architecture is portrayed in section 4 and finally, section 5 concludes this chapter with future enhancements.