research-article

Parasol and GreenSwitch: managing datacenters powered by renewable energy

Authors:

William Katsak,

Ricardo BianchiniAuthors Info & Claims

ASPLOS '13: Proceedings of the eighteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems

Pages 51 - 64

https://doi.org/10.1145/2451116.2451123

Published: 16 March 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Several companies have recently announced plans to build "green" datacenters, i.e. datacenters partially or completely powered by renewable energy. These datacenters will either generate their own renewable energy or draw it directly from an existing nearby plant. Besides reducing carbon footprints, renewable energy can potentially reduce energy costs, reduce peak power costs, or both. However, certain renewable fuels are intermittent, which requires approaches for tackling the energy supply variability. One approach is to use batteries and/or the electrical grid as a backup for the renewable energy. It may also be possible to adapt the workload to match the renewable energy supply. For highest benefits, green datacenter operators must intelligently manage their workloads and the sources of energy at their disposal.

In this paper, we first discuss the tradeoffs involved in building green datacenters today and in the future. Second, we present Parasol, a prototype green datacenter that we have built as a research platform. Parasol comprises a small container, a set of solar panels, a battery bank, and a grid-tie. Third, we describe GreenSwitch, our model-based approach for dynamically scheduling the workload and selecting the source of energy to use. Our real experiments with Parasol, GreenSwitch, and MapReduce workloads demonstrate that intelligent workload and energy source management can produce significant cost reductions. Our results also isolate the cost implications of peak power management, storing energy on the grid, and the ability to delay the MapReduce jobs. Finally, our results demonstrate that careful workload and energy source management can minimize the negative impact of electrical grid outages.

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Cited By

Silva CVilaça RPereira ABessa R(2024)A review on the decarbonization of high-performance computing centersRenewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews10.1016/j.rser.2023.114019189(114019)Online publication date: Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.114019
Bashir NChandio YIrwin DAnwar FGummeson JShenoy P(2023)Jointly Managing Electrical and Thermal Energy in Solar- and Battery-powered Computer SystemsProceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems10.1145/3575813.3595191(132-143)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575813.3595191
Souza ABashir NMurillo JHanafy WLiang QIrwin DShenoy PAamodt TJerger NSwift M(2023)Ecovisor: A Virtual Energy System for Carbon-Efficient ApplicationsProceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, Volume 210.1145/3575693.3575709(252-265)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575693.3575709
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Index Terms

Parasol and GreenSwitch: managing datacenters powered by renewable energy
1. Computer systems organization
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        Process management
        Scheduling

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cover image ACM Conferences

ASPLOS '13: Proceedings of the eighteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems

March 2013

574 pages

ISBN:9781450318709

DOI:10.1145/2451116

General Chair:
Vivek Sarkar
Rice University, USA
,
Program Chair:
Rastislav Bodik
University of California, Berkeley, USA

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 48, Issue 4
ASPLOS '13
April 2013
540 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2499368
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 41, Issue 1
ASPLOS '13
March 2013
540 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/2490301
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

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Published: 16 March 2013

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ASPLOS '13: Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems

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Cited By

Silva CVilaça RPereira ABessa R(2024)A review on the decarbonization of high-performance computing centersRenewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews10.1016/j.rser.2023.114019189(114019)Online publication date: Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.114019
Bashir NChandio YIrwin DAnwar FGummeson JShenoy P(2023)Jointly Managing Electrical and Thermal Energy in Solar- and Battery-powered Computer SystemsProceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems10.1145/3575813.3595191(132-143)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575813.3595191
Souza ABashir NMurillo JHanafy WLiang QIrwin DShenoy PAamodt TJerger NSwift M(2023)Ecovisor: A Virtual Energy System for Carbon-Efficient ApplicationsProceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, Volume 210.1145/3575693.3575709(252-265)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575693.3575709
Dikaiakos MChatzigeorgiou NTryfonos AAndreou ALoulloudes NPallis GGeorgiou G(2023)A cyber‐physical management system for medium‐scale solar‐powered data centersConcurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience10.1002/cpe.765835:10Online publication date: 16-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.7658
Lee RMaghakian JHajiesmaili MLi JSitaraman RLiu Z(2022)Online peak-aware energy scheduling with untrusted adviceACM SIGEnergy Energy Informatics Review10.1145/3508467.35084731:1(59-77)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3508467.3508473
Hou XLi CYang JZheng WLiang XGuo M(2022)Integrated Power Anomaly Defense: Towards Oversubscription-Safe Data CentersIEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing10.1109/TCC.2020.300145410:3(1875-1887)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCC.2020.3001454
Grange LStolf PDa Costa GRenaud-Goud P(2022)Multi-Objective and Cooperative Power Planning for Datacenter With On-Site Renewable Energy SourcesIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.321052310(104067-104092)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3210523
Bashir NGuo THajiesmaili MIrwin DShenoy PSitaraman RSouza AWierman A(2021)Enabling Sustainable CloudsProceedings of the ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing10.1145/3472883.3487009(350-358)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472883.3487009
Wiesner PBehnke IScheinert DGontarska KThamsen LZhang KGherbi AVenkatasubramanian NVeiga L(2021)Let's wait awhileProceedings of the 22nd International Middleware Conference10.1145/3464298.3493399(260-272)Online publication date: 6-Dec-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3464298.3493399
Lee RMaghakian JHajiesmaili MLi JSitaraman RLiu Z(2021)Online Peak-Aware Energy Scheduling with Untrusted AdviceProceedings of the Twelfth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems10.1145/3447555.3464860(107-123)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2021
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