The energy efficiency of data centers has been in the focus of research for several years. Technologies, such as the virtualization of services and infrastructures, are broadly available in data centers, today. Not only IT infrastructures (e.g., servers, storage, and network) have been considered for energy management, but also the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) environment. Although the technologies are maturing, there are still big challenges to be faced. Consistent definitions of metrics for energy efficiency of data centers need to be established as well as incentives that are specifically targeted at energy-aware data center management, for instance. In addition to an abundance of already well-researched areas, new topics arise, such as the phenomenon of Big Data, which until today has been hardly analyzed with respect to its impact on energy consumption in data centers. Also, energy-aware workload management remains in the focus of research. Virtualization facilitates the integration of different kinds of technologies for energy-efficient resource and service provisioning. This includes ad hoc strategies, e.g., to flexibly integrate newly discovered (or created) resources into the data center’s infrastructure.

Energy efficiency, however, is not the end of the energy-aware data center’s evolvement. Recently, there are worldwide initiatives to upgrade the power grid to the so called Smart Grid. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is used to improve the power grid in terms of managing power generation, transport, distribution, and even power demand. Adaptive energy demand is a main enabler for the integration of renewable energy sources (e.g., sun or wind) into the energy generation process as well as the avoidance of CO2 intensive demand peaks. Therefore, data centers need to be enabled to not only operate energy efficiently, but also to be able to dynamically adapt their energy demand according to the availability of renewable energy sources (demand-response management) – thus maturing from energy-aware to eco-aware data centers. New challenges arise in terms of architecture, infrastructure, and communication, if different types of data centers (e.g., traditional computing, cloud computing, or high performance computing) are enhanced to support dynamic power demand in the Smart Grid.

Energy awareness is a key challenge within eco-aware data centers to enable energy-efficient and Smart Grid supporting operation of servers, storage, services, network, and communication. This also means that communication infrastructures and communication protocols play a major role within eco-aware data centers. Energy-related communication needs to be established within the data center to enable energy management and demand-response management, for instance. Hardware and software needs to be monitored and controlled in real-time during phases of power consumption adaption, to avoid unwanted side effects. Also a communication path to customers should be foreseen to enable dynamic parameters within “GreenSLAs” that allow for a more efficient energy management than traditional SLAs.

The goal of this special issue is to collect papers in the area of energy-aware data centers that are able to operate energy efficiently and support energy management for demand-response management. We solicit high-quality papers that will address architectures, infrastructures, and communication challenges of energy-aware data centers, particularly in a Smart Grid context.

The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Energy-aware communication infrastructures and protocols for data centers
Energy-aware real-time communication for data centers
Big Data: Energy-aware software and service management for data centers
Energy-aware monitoring and control for data centers
Energy optimization algorithms and models for data centers
Smart grid related communication infrastructures and protocols for data centers
Demand-response management for data centers
Communication and negotiation of dynamic contract options (e.g., GreenSLAs)
Data centers and their role in Smart Cities
Smart Grid-related monitoring, control, and management for data centers
Protocols, architectures, and communication protocols for data center federation
Metrics for energy-aware data centers
Energy-aware data center standardization
Resilience of energy-aware data centers
Security of energy-related communication in data centers
Privacy and trust of energy-related communication in data centers
Intrusion detection / prevention for demand-response solutions for data centers
Architectures for ad hoc structured energy-aware data centers
Energy efficiency in ad hoc based data centers

Submission Format and Guideline:

All submitted papers must be clearly written in excellent English and contain only original work, which has not been published by or is currently under review for any other journal or conference. Papers must not exceed 25 pages (one-column, at least 11pt fonts) including figures, tables, and references. A detailed submission guideline is available as “Guide to Authors” at www.elsevier.com/locate/adhoc.

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through Elsevier Editorial System (EES). The authors must select “SI–Energy-Aware-DC” when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process. The EES website is located at: http://ees.elsevier.com/adhoc

All papers will be peer-reviewed by three independent reviewers. Requests for additional information should be addressed to the guest editors.