Cloud Computing and Energy Efficiency: Mapping the Thematic Structure of Research

Abstract

The dynamic growth in the use of cloud computing systems results in increasing energy consumption. Consequently, more and more attention is given to energy efficiency issues both in research and theory development as well as the business practice of cloud computing systems. In spite of the rapid development of research, the field has not been mapped from the bibliometric perspective yet. This study aims at publication profiling and mapping the thematic structure of the cloud computing energy efficiency research field. Detailed research objectives include: (1) profiling scientific publications in the field, (2) identifying and exploring thematic research areas, (3) identifying emerging topics and discussing their potential as future research lines. The aforementioned objectives are translated into the following study questions: (1) What are the most productive nations, institutions, source titles, and scholars contributing to research on energy efficiency in cloud computing? (2) What does the thematic structure of the research field look like? (3) What are the “hot” research topics attracting scholars’ attention? The research methodology toolbox includes a combination of bibliometric descriptive studies (research profiling), science mapping (keyword co-occurrence analysis), and literature reviews (systematic literature review). Bibliometric data for analysis were elicited from the Scopus database. The VOSviewer software supported bibliometric analysis and data visualization.