The evolving world of cloud computing and digital networks
MRU-led research studying changing landscape
— Mount Royal University | Posted: March 24, 2023
Featured researcher: Maryam Elahi, PhD
Department of Mathematics and Computing
Cloud-computing resources and overall internet usage have been growing rapidly around the world in recent years. More and more individuals and businesses are relying on the internet to store and access data, applications and services from anywhere and at any time.
Research around the design and performance evaluation of these networked and distributed systems is of interest to Dr. Maryam Elahi, PhD, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computing at Mount Royal University. She looks at the growing need for reliable and efficient resource-allocation algorithms to manage this increase in demand and ensure a balance between cloud-based service performance, energy efficiency and user experience.
“We rely on the internet and computing infrastructure for many things in our day-to-day lives, and with the growing amount of internet traffic, we require algorithms for resource allocation to help meet this demand,” Elahi says.
The end-user experience is also an important part of Elahi’s investigation as she evaluates users' attitudes as they access cloud-computing applications.
The environmental impact is of utmost concern. “It is projected that the global electricity consumption of the information and communications technology sector will reach 25 per cent in 2025, and with the projected growth in the sector we need to make our systems as efficient as possible to minimize the carbon footprint.”
Elahi teaches network infrastructure and distributed systems to computer science and computer information systems students at MRU. She draws from her research to motivate her students by explaining the tangible impact of the design choices in computer systems on the infrastructure that people rely on daily.
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