Energy Efficiency in Multi-Tenanted Data Centres

Dr Mike Kelly CEO

Data Centre Evolution1990-2005Colocation

2005-2007Density

2007-2011Containment

2011+Modular

2.0 PUE 1.4 – 1.6 PUE 1.2 – 1.5 PUE 1.05 –1.15 PUE

RackDensity & deploymentFree air coolingRaise temperatures

Server Capacity20 year technology

Containers, PODs Scalability Sustainability Hot & cold aisle containment

Modular CHP/ renewable energyFree air

Scale of the challenge

1%?10%?

Does PUE miss the point?

• PUE measures energy consumption• PUE concentration allows some energy saving

from historic baseline, ~30%, but real compute efficiency could be very low

• Greater deficiency – Assumes (in a sense) that all IT power

consumption is productive– In reality actual use of silicon estate could be very

low, <10%

Efficiency and Utilisation

Source: Blackburn, 2008

PUE+Compute efficiency as well as PUE

Single user data centre

• Single user will manage data centre and compute resource

• ‘Knows’ what’s happening – can measure actual compute efficiency

• Can measure compute cycles per watt

• Can maximise efficiency because can use shared compute resource across range of applications

How can we do this in multi-tenant

Colo plus Traditional Colocation Facility New Facility

Many types of Cloud

Future Data Centres Internal Environment – Radical OCP• Form factors matched at

all scales• Boards sit in racks as

moveable chassis– Self supporting and

stackable

• Wireless networks• Pluggable bulk connectors

for rack scale form factor• ‘Racks’ stackable and

constructable for reconfiguration and convection friendly shapes

• Robotic movement of ‘racks’ in high bay warehouse like environment

• Performance measures IIOPs per watt, IPS or FLOPS per watt

• Complete integration of compute and internal network with physical operation of data centre

• Data centres as neighbourhood hot spots of pervasive compute

Future Data Centres in their Environment

• Factories of continuous production– Never idle– Continuous renewal of equipment– On site generation

• Neighbourhood resource like urban power stations

• Integrated into CHP schemes• Use of heat to create urban vegetation

production in biodomes in temperate zones– Can achieve high radiative forcing levels

Compute Efficiency in Future Data Centres

• Compute efficiency in data centres can’t be achieved without use of local cloud

• Can’t be achieved without shared monitoring• Can’t be achieved without shared resources• Sharing of data centres is relatively novel• Sharing compute systems is something IT

service providers ask their users to do all the time

• Sauce for the goose