SYSTEM FOR MAXIMIZING SERVER UTILIZATION IN A RESOURCE CONSTRAINED ENVIRONMENT
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Abstract
A mechanism for controlling the hardware resources on a blade server, and thereby limiting the power consumption of the blade server is disclosed. The enforceable hardware resources that are controlled include the base frequency of the central processing unit (CPU) as well as power to individual banks of physical memory, for example dual-inline memory modules (DIMMs). The hardware resources are tuned in dependence on actual server utilization such that applications running on the blade only have the allocated hardware resources available to them. Deactivated hardware resources are powered off and are so ‘hidden’ from the operating system when they are not required. In this manner, power consumption in the entire chassis can be managed such that all server blades can be powered on and operate at higher steady-state utilization. The utilization of the powered on resources in a blade center is also improved.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1-5. -5. (canceled)
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6. A blade center chassis apparatus comprising:
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a plurality of blade servers populating a plurality of chassis slots; a management module; a power supply common to said plurality of chassis slots for powering said plurality of blade servers, wherein said power supply further comprises a plurality of power modules; and circuitry built into said management module operable for; reading a total power capacity of said blade center chassis by querying each of said plurality of power modules installed in said blade center chassis; calculating a maximum power load dissipated by said plurality of blade servers by querying a power consumption value of each of said plurality of blade servers; allocating an individual amount of power to each of said plurality of blade servers, wherein a total amount of individual power allocated remains less than said total power capacity of said blade center chassis; and brokering said total power capacity in said blade center chassis by changing said individual amount of power allocated to each of said plurality of blade servers. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9)
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10. A blade server device comprising a service processor for communications and resource management functions, wherein said service processor further comprises circuitry operable for:
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determining power consumption settings of power-consuming resources on said blade server by communicating with a BIOS on said blade server; calculating power consumption values based on said power consumption settings; and communicating said power consumption values to a management module in a blade center chassis populated by said blade server. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12)
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13. A computer program product embodied in a machine readable medium for monitoring hardware resources in a blade server comprising the programming steps of:
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monitoring utilization of power-consuming resources on each of a plurality of blade servers during operation of an operating system booted on each of said plurality of blade servers; and determining when said utilization of said power-consuming resources on each of said plurality of blade servers requires a change in an individual amount of power allocated to each of said plurality of blade servers.
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Specification