Balancing peer and server energy consumption in large peer-to-peer file distribution systems

Network induced energy consumption is a significant fraction of all ICT energy consumption. This paper investigates the most energy efficient way to distribute a file to a large number of recipients. It is shown that using peer-to-peer and naively minimizing the transfer time results in energy consumption that is an order of magnitude larger than simply distributing directly from a server, but that with careful management peer-to-peer systems can reduce the server's cost without increasing overall energy consumption.