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The PowerNap Server Architecture

Published:01 February 2011Publication History
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Abstract

Data center power consumption is growing to unprecedented levels: the EPA estimates U.S. data centers will consume 100 billion kilowatt hours annually by 2011. Much of this energy is wasted in idle systems: in typical deployments, server utilization is below 30%, but idle servers still consume 60% of their peak power draw. Typical idle periods---though frequent---last seconds or less, confounding simple energy-conservation approaches.

In this article, we propose PowerNap, an energy-conservation approach where the entire system transitions rapidly between a high-performance active state and a near-zero-power idle state in response to instantaneous load. Rather than requiring fine-grained power-performance states and complex load-proportional operation from individual system components, PowerNap instead calls for minimizing idle power and transition time, which are simpler optimization goals. Based on the PowerNap concept, we develop requirements and outline mechanisms to eliminate idle power waste in enterprise blade servers. Because PowerNap operates in low-efficiency regions of current blade center power supplies, we introduce the Redundant Array for Inexpensive Load Sharing (RAILS), a power provisioning approach that provides high conversion efficiency across the entire range of PowerNap’s power demands. Using utilization traces collected from enterprise-scale commercial deployments, we demonstrate that, together, PowerNap and RAILS reduce average server power consumption by 74%.

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        • Published in

          cover image ACM Transactions on Computer Systems
          ACM Transactions on Computer Systems  Volume 29, Issue 1
          February 2011
          104 pages
          ISSN:0734-2071
          EISSN:1557-7333
          DOI:10.1145/1925109
          Issue’s Table of Contents

          Copyright © 2011 ACM

          Publisher

          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 1 February 2011
          • Accepted: 1 December 2010
          • Revised: 1 November 2010
          • Received: 1 March 2010
          Published in tocs Volume 29, Issue 1

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