Carbon-intelligent content scheduling in CDNs

Conference item

Content delivery networks scaling with users' demand can meet quality of service needs by placing caches close to users. However, distributing content to caches is not for free. Not only it has a monetary cost, but also an environmental footprint. This work proposes a carbon-intelligent content delivery algorithm that accounts for cost and traffic demands as well as carbon emissions. Given the spatial and temporal dynamism of carbon intensity, this work aligns data delivery to caches with low carbon intensity periods and low distribution costs. The solution is evaluated on the Netflix Open Connect network, showing operational carbon savings between 13% and 64% while conserving other constraints.

Authors: El Zahr, S; Nathan, W; Zilberman, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery
• Host title: ANRW '25: Proceedings of the 2025 Applied Networking Research Workshop
• Pages: 1-8
• Publication date: 2025-07-22
• Acceptance date: 2025-06-05
• Event title: ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW 2025)
• Event location: Madrid, Spain
• Event website: https://www.irtf.org/anrw/2025/
• Event start date: 2025-07-19
• Event end date: 2025-07-25
• DOI: 10.1145/3744200.3744774
• ISBN: 9798400720093
• Language: English
• Keywords: scheduling; sustainability; internet carbon emissions