Power saving in data centersThe future of TIC

Álvaro López MedinaETSIT – UPM 2015

1 Introduction

PUE2Cognitive Networks3Conclusions4

INTRODUCTION

What is a data center?

A data center is a facility that stores and manages lots of information of one or more companies.

Some companies, like Google and Amazon, rent some servers from its own data centers to other companies.This fact concentrates all the energy consumption in several big data centers.

1 Introduction

INTRODUCTION1

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are the companies with more data center facilities around the world.

Google has 900 000 servers distributed in 13 data centers.

Amazon has 450 000 servers, 40 000 dedicated to their Web Services division.

Microsoft, with over 500 000 servers, has spent over $15 billion on its data centers.

Facebook stores 100 Petabytes of data, around 100 000 000 GB, in their data centers.

Relevant data1 Introduction

INTRODUCTION1

This large number of servers and information stored in the data centers demands a large amount of energy.

Google uses around 260 million watts which accounts to 0.01% of global energy. This power is enough to supply 200 000 homes.

The second largest data center (Quality Technology, Atlanta) is supported by 80 megawatts of power capacity.

This is a problem that TIC may solve in the future.

The standard storage rack (*) in Facebook uses 8 Kilowatts of power.

The power density of a data center is 100 times more than that of a large commercial office building.

(*) A rack is a enclosure for mounting multiple equipment modules (around 10 servers).

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Energetic consumption1 Introduction

PUE2

These numbers make us to consider whether power consumption of the data centers is used efficiently or a significant part is wasted. To classify data centers concerning their energy efficiency it is used the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).

- The Total Facility Energy includes: IT Equipment Energy, lighting, cooling…

- IT Equipment Energy includes only the energy consumption of the servers.

The average data center PUE is about 1.8 which means that the data center has an over cost of 80% in activities that are not exclusive of the servers (mainly due to cooling activities).

PUE =

Total Facility EnergyIT Equipment Energy

Energy Efficiency2 PUE

PUE2

Now, companies have realized that whereas having 10 inefficient servers may not be an issue, when owning 10 000 or even 100 000 servers their efficiency means saving much more costs.

“The aim of innovation in the future will be focused on minimizing the energetic consumption in Data Centers”

Scope2 PUE

PUE2

There are three main ways to improve energy saving:

Using less consumption components. There are lots of innovations but it is just keep working with the same idea.Changing the layout of the servers so that there are cool currents and hot currents that don’t mix each other.Using cognitive networks to make all the servers think as one.

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Ways of improve the PUE2 PUE

PUE2

Changing the layout of the servers to create corridors between them.These corridors will be of two types:

The cold ones will take the fresh air from the air conditioning system to the entry of each server.

The hot ones collects the hot air that leaves the servers to lead it to the air conditioning system again.

Changing the layout2 PUE

PUE2

There are three main ways to improve energy saving:

Using less consumption components. There are lots of innovations but it is just keep working with the same idea.

Changing the layout of the servers so that there are cool currents and hot currents that don’t mix each other.

Using cognitive networks to make all the servers think as one.

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This is the most important way

Ways of improve the PUE2 PUE

COGNITIVE NETWORKS3

“A cognitive network is a network formed by a large amount of sensors and actuators that make a great Artificial Intelligence (AI) which monitor the consumption and the needs of the servers and modify the set up so that they save as much energy as possible”

What is it?3 Cognitive Networks

COGNITIVE NETWORKS3

Sensors monitor constantly the environment: Humidity, temperature, load of the servers, r.p.m. of the server fans, consumption of the power source, etc.

Then, they send it to a central server which collects all the information.

The main server, which is an AI, process the data to know if the system is working properly or is underusing or oversizing the resources it has.

The central server communicates to all the servers and actuators, which energy consumption policies they should follow to maximize the capacity of the servers and minimize the power consumption.

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How it works?3 Cognitive Networks

COGNITIVE NETWORKS3

It will centralize the monitoring of all the information of the data center.

It will have a centralize governor policy that will manage all the servers.

It will have real-time information of every component of the servers.

All the servers will work as a unique entity which has perfect coordination and able to take important consumption decisions.

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Thanks to Cognitive Networks, the data center that implements it will achieve the following advantages:

What advantages does it offer?3 Cognitive Networks

CONCLUSIONS4

During this presentation we have seen how important data centers are in all the businesses, how they impact in the power consumption of the world and the need to improve the energy saving.

So, as a conclusion of what we have discussed all along this presentation, we can safely say that THE FUTURE OF TIC will clearly involve making an extraordinary effort in order to implement the technical solutions mentioned above.

4 Conclusion