ENERGY CONTROL VIA POWER REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS AND POWER SOURCE ENABLEMENT

• US 20150121113A1
• Filed: 10/28/2014
• Published: 04/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Virtual Power Systems, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Virtual Power Systems, Inc.
• Inventors: Ramamurthy, Shankar, Nachbar, Erich Karl, Lin, K David, Chuang, Frank, Huralikoppi, Rajeev P, Kennedy, Ryan Justin, Kouroussis, Denis, Kukanur, Milind, Samal, Pranthik, Shankar, Sushant, Soundararajan, Rajaram, Sy, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 10,128,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/340
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/263 Arrangements for using multiple switchable power supplies, e.g. battery and AC G06F1/30 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/30 Means for acting in the event of power-supply failure or interruption, e.g. power-supply fluctuations for resetting only G06F1/24
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/0063 with circuits adapted for supplying loads from the battery
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/00712 the cycle being controlled or terminated in response to electric parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 9/061 for DC powered loads
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 9/062 for AC powered loads

Abstract

Disclosed are systems and methods to provide energy control via power-requirement analysis and power-source enablement. Both demand-side and supply-side techniques are used alone or in conjunction to determine an optimal number of power sources to supply power to one or more loads. When fluctuations in power requirements are present, measures such as decoupling less-critical loads in order to continue delivering power to critical systems and turning on and off power sources as needed to meet the current power demands of a system are implemented. Power sources are periodically deactivated by the system on a rotational basis such that all power sources wear evenly, prolonging the life of the equipment. A scalable architecture that allows the virtualization of power from the underlying hardware form factor is also provided.

Claims

1. A processor-implemented method for power control comprising:

accessing a plurality of power sources which are coupled to one or more power loads;

detecting power requirements for the one or more power loads; and

enabling one or more power sources from the plurality of power sources to match the power requirements of the one or more power loads wherein the enabling is a function of demand-side requirements.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling includes a local enabling on a rack basis.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling includes a global enabling that is facilitated via a central appliance that works across racks in a data center.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of power sources include one or more batteries and one or more power supplies.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising decoupling loads from the plurality of power sources.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the decoupling is a function of the detecting of the power requirements.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the demand-side requirements are dynamic power requirements of the one or more power loads.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the detecting includes detection of the dynamic power requirements.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling optimizes the one or more power sources to set the one or more power sources in an efficient power range.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the detecting includes detection across multiple racks, across cages, across geography, across topology, or across hardware architectures.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling is performed dynamically as a function of dynamic power requirements of the one or more power loads.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising evaluating reliability for the plurality of power sources and controlling one or more power sources from the plurality of power sources to enhance reliability of the plurality of power sources.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the detecting of the power requirements is performed by a plurality of sensors.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein one or more of the plurality of sensors is dynamically coupled to the one or more power sources or the one or more power loads.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising rebalancing the one or more power loads to the one or more power sources after a certain duration.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling provides for assigned redundancy tiering.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising selectively disabling a power source from the plurality of power sources based on reduced need from the one or more power loads.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of power sources include one or more batteries and further comprising recharging the one or more batteries as part of the accessing.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of power sources includes one or more power supplies where the accessing includes controlling output of the one or more power supplies.

22. The method of claim 1 further comprising monitoring power demands from the one or more power loads on an ongoing basis.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling provides for supply-side power management.

24. The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying, based on sensor data from the plurality of power sources, a power source that is operating below a quality threshold.

25. The method of claim 24 further comprising disabling the power source that is operating below the quality threshold.

28. The method of claim 1 wherein stress on each of the plurality of power sources is monitored.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein power supplies are selectively disabled based on the stress.

30. The method of claim 1 wherein power supply units are migrated for phase balancing and age balancing.

32. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing dynamic power control for the plurality of power sources coupled to a plurality of applications;

grouping the plurality of applications into two or more groups;

applying policies to accomplish grouping into the two or more groups;

storing a dynamic allocation table where the dynamic allocation table enables the dynamic power control of the plurality of power sources; and

updating the dynamic allocation table based on the policies.

33. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

evaluating an IT infrastructure including the plurality of power sources couple to the one or more power loads;

monitoring power requirements of the IT infrastructure;

determining power surpluses and power shortfalls of the plurality of power sources; and

allocating dynamically the power surpluses to the power shortfalls.

34. The method of claim 33 further comprising iterating for the monitoring of the power requirements and the determining of the power surpluses and power shortfalls.

35. The method of claim 33 further comprising reallocating dynamically the power surpluses to the power shortfalls.

36. The method of claim 33 wherein the allocating is provided dynamically based on historical power usage patterns.

37. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining an IT infrastructure including the plurality of power sources and the one or more power loads;

monitoring power requirements for the IT infrastructure;

evaluating power surpluses and power shortfalls of the plurality of power sources; and

allocating dynamically the power surpluses to the power shortfalls.

43. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

obtaining a group of profiles for the plurality of power sources;

discovering information about a power source, from the plurality of power sources, using a plurality of sensors;

calculating a power source profile based on the information that was discovered;

comparing the power source profile with the group of profiles; and

classifying the power source based on the comparing.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein the power source does not provide information about its identity.

46. The method of claim 44 further comprising augmenting smart information provided by the power source with the power source profile that was calculated.

47. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining power requirements for a plurality of data center racks, wherein the plurality of data center racks comprise the one or more power loads;

evaluating power capabilities of the plurality of power sources coupled to the plurality of data center racks;

calculating stranded power capacity from the plurality of power sources; and

provisioning the plurality of power sources to provide power to the plurality of data center racks based on the stranded power capacity that was calculated.

48. The method of claim 47 further comprising negotiating with other power capabilities from other power sources to utilize stranded capacity in the other power sources.

49. The method of claim 47 further comprising optimizing supply-side power delivery from the plurality of power sources based on the stranded power capacity that was calculated.

50. The method of claim 47 further comprising optimizing load-side power usage by the plurality of data center racks based on the stranded power capacity that was calculated.

51. The method of claim 47 further comprising determining a priority order within the plurality of data center racks, using the priority order as part of the provisioning, capping power to a subset of the plurality of data center racks based on the priority order where the capping includes dynamic power capping for a lower priority subset of the plurality of data center racks.

52. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

obtaining data from the plurality of power sources;

classifying a subset of the plurality of power sources;

modeling behavior for the subset of the plurality of power sources; and

analyzing failure for the subset of the plurality of power sources based on the modeling.

10-11. -11. (canceled)

26-27. -27. (canceled)

31. (canceled)

38-42. -42. (canceled)

45. (canceled)

53-54. -54. (canceled)

55. An apparatus for power control comprising:

a memory which stores instructions;

one or more processors coupled to the memory wherein the one or more processors are configured to;

access a plurality of power sources which are coupled to one or more power loads;

detect power requirements for the one or more power loads; and

enable one or more power sources from the plurality of power sources to match the power requirements of the one or more power loads wherein the enabling is a function of demand-side requirements.

56. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium for power control comprising:

code for accessing a plurality of power sources which are coupled to one or more power loads;

code for detecting power requirements for the one or more power loads; and

code for enabling one or more power sources from the plurality of power sources to match the power requirements of the one or more power loads wherein the enabling is a function of demand-side requirements.