Science of Power Management

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

As the computing needs of business and consumers continue to grow, mega data centers with tens of thousands of machines are being built the size of shopping malls that consume tens of megawatts of power. These data centers support e-commerce, financial services, health care, telecommunications, and a variety of other services critical to the society. Power and thermal management of servers in these data centers and the clients using them has become a critical issue from many perspectives including utility costs, environmental impact, space usage, etc. Although there is a substantial amount of ongoing research into these issues in both academia and industry, many of the approaches tend to be ad hoc and empirical in nature. The purpose of the workshop is to examine power and thermal issues at a much more fundamental level and thereby bring a scientific approach to designing, configuring and managing hardware and software in a way that comprehends not only the power/thermal issues but also the associated performance and reliability tradeoffs. The broader impact of the workshop is expected to be in terms of guiding future research in this area that is important from technological, economic and sustainability perspective