Studies show that data centers are doubling their total power consumption every 5 years. But have most data centers optimized their energy consumption with the current available solutions? Platform Computing knows there is room in data centers to reduce energy costs by 10-30%. This paper describes strategies for dynamically managing the energy consumption to achieve similar results.
Green HPCDynamic Power
Management
in HPC
A TECHNOLOGY WHITEPAPERGreen HPC - Dynamic Power Management in HPC 2
Green HPC - Dynamic Power Management in HPC
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
"Green" Strategies .............................................................................................................. 4
Implementation ................................................................................................................... 7
"Green" ROI ...................................................................................................................... 9
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 1 IDC's prediction of data center power cost vs. server cost............................................. 3
Figure 2: Scheduling high priority workload in peak hours........................................................ 4
Figure 3: Spatially visualizing hot spots in an HPC datacenter ................................................... 6
Figure 4: Scheduling workload to avoid hot spots in the datacenter............................................ 6
Figure 5: Architecture of a workload management "Green" solution........................................... 7
Figure 6: Extended "Green" management solution................................................................... 8
Figure 7: Example of GDD power control ............................................................................... 8
Figure 8: "Green" management solution visualization .............................................................. 9
Figure 9: Example ROI calculation based on a 6,000 node datacenter .................................... 10
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Introduction
High Performance Computing (HPC) capacity relies on energy for both powering the computer hardware and cooling the air. According to IDC, "50¢ is spent to power & cool servers for every $1 in server spending today; this will increase to 70¢ by 2010" (Figure 1). Facility power & cooling is one of the major costs for HPC data centers.
Figure 1 IDC's prediction of data center power cost vs. server cost
1Governments in many countries also have multiple programs to understand, track, and rate datacenter efficiency . 2For example, US data center power consumption has been doubling every 5 years and that rate appears to be accelerating as more and more companies rely on server farms for infrastructure and IP generation. Studies by the EPA have shown that datacenters consumed 1.5% of the total power production in 2006. IDC has continued to 3monitor power requirements for datacenters and recently released a warning that the growth rate is accelerating. Finally, records show that electric bills for US companies totaled $2.7 Billion USD and just over $7 Billion worldwide. How can an HPC data center minimize energy cost without sacrificing performance? . Adopting blade technology . Adopting hardware that offers more performance per kilowatt . Adopting system management software for IT staff to manage power consumption.
1 See http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=prod_development.server_efficiency 2 See http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Data-Center-Power-Consumption-on-the-Rise-Report-Shows/ 3 See http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUK21455708 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Platform Computing Corporation Page 3 of 10 Green HPC - Dynamic Power Management in HPC 4
But have most HPC centers optimized their energy consumption with the current available solutions? Platform computing is uniquely positioned as a workload management technology vendor to provide solutions which respond dynamically to workloa... [download for more]
