Optimizing Data Centre Energy and Environmental Costs

Aikema, David

Optimizing Data Centre Energy and Environmental Costs

atmire.migration.oldid	898
dc.contributor.advisor	Simmonds, Robert
dc.contributor.author	Aikema, David
dc.date.accessioned	2013-05-01T15:48:48Z
dc.date.available	2013-06-10T07:00:45Z
dc.date.issued	2013-05-01
dc.date.submitted	2013	en
dc.description.abstract	Data centres use an estimated 2% of US electrical power which accounts for much of their total cost of ownership. This consumption continues to grow, further straining power grids attempting to integrate more renewable energy. This dissertation focuses on assessing and reducing data centre environmental and financial costs. Emissions of projects undertaken to lower the data centre environmental footprints can be assessed and the emission reduction projects compared using an ISO-14064-2-compliant greenhouse gas reduction protocol outlined herein. I was closely involved with the development of the protocol. Full lifecycle analysis and verifying that projects exceed business-as-usual expectations are addressed, and a test project is described. Consuming power when it is low cost or when renewable energy is available can be used to reduce the financial and environmental costs of computing. Adaptation based on the power price showed 10-50% potential savings in typical cases, and local renewable energy use could be increased by 10-80%. Allowing a fraction of high-priority tasks to proceed unimpeded still allows significant savings. Power grid operators use mechanisms called ancillary services to address variation and system failures, paying organizations to alter power consumption on request. By bidding to offer these services, data centres may be able to lower their energy costs while reducing their environmental impact. If providing contingency reserves which require only infrequent action, savings of up to 12% were seen in simulations. Greater power cost savings are possible for those ceding more control to the power grid operator. Coordinating multiple data centres adds overhead, and altering at which data centre requests are processed based on changes in the financial or environmental costs of power is likely to increase this overhead. Tests of virtual machine migrations showed that in some cases there was no visible increase in power use while in others power use rose by 20-30W. Estimates of how migration was likely to impact other services used in current cloud environments were derived.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Aikema, D. (2013). Optimizing Data Centre Energy and Environmental Costs (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27215	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27215
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11023/664
dc.language.iso	eng
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.publisher.place	Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Computer Science
dc.subject	Energy
dc.subject.classification	Data Centre	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Energy Costs	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Environmental Costs	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Financial Costs	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Power Markets	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Renewable Energy	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Ancillary Services	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction	en_US
dc.subject.classification	ISO-14064-2	en_US
dc.title	Optimizing Data Centre Energy and Environmental Costs
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Computer Science
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true