Methods of achieving cognizant power management

• US 8,429,431 B2
• Filed: 10/21/2009
• Issued: 04/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sunbird Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Raritan Americas Incorporated (Legrand SA)
• Inventors: Malik, Naim R., Paetz, Christian, Weinstock, Neil, Yang, Allen, Onyshkevych, Vsevolod, Somasundaram, Siva
• Primary Examiner(s): Elamin, M
• Application Number:
  US12/603,322
• Publication Number:
  US 20100235654A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,280 Days
• Field of Search: 713/300, 713/310, 713320-324, 713/330, 713/340
• US Class Current: 713/300
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/26 Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof for memories G11C
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/324 by lowering clock frequency
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5094 where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A system and method of increasing the efficiency of overall power utilization in data centers by integrating a power management approach based on a comprehensive, dynamic model of the data center created with integrated environmental and computational power monitoring to correlate power usage with different configurations of business services utilization, with the techniques of CPU level power management.

Claims

1. A method for cognizant power management in a distributed computing system having a plurality of processing units, comprising the steps of:

a. gathering first values of process level information from the plurality of processing units;

b. gathering first values of environmental metrics for the computing system;

c. generating a predictive behavior power utilization model based on the process level information and the environmental metrics;

d. predicting a power utilization of the computing system according to the predictive behavior power utilization model and a distributed load;

e. setting a state in at least one of the plurality of processing units based on the predictive behavior power utilization model;

f. distributing an application load to the computing system based on based on the predictive behavior power utilization model;

g. determining an actual power utilization by gathering second values for the process level information and the environmental metrics; and

h. updating the predictive behavior power utilization model according to actual power utilization when a difference between the actual power utilization and the predicted power utilization exceeds a predetermined threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of processing units includes at least one of a plurality of central processing units, a plurality of functional units within central processing units, and a plurality of hypervisors managing virtual machines.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the state is one of a plurality of performance states.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the frequency of a processing unit.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the voltage of a processing unit.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the frequency and the voltage of a processing unit.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein one of a plurality of performance states includes at least a first performance state and a second performance state, wherein the first performance state can bear a greater computational load than the second state.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the state is one of a plurality of sleep states.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein one of a plurality of sleep states includes at least a first sleep state and second sleep state, wherein the first sleep state has a lower wake up time than the second sleep state.

10. A method for cognizant power management in a distributed computing system comprising the steps of:

a. gathering first values of process level information from the plurality of processing units;

b. gathering first values of environmental metrics for the computing system;

c. generating a predictive behavior power utilization model based on the process level information and the environmental metrics;

d. predicting a power utilization of the computing system according to the predictive behavior power utilization model and a distributed load;

e. setting a state in at least one of the plurality of processing units based on the predictive behavior power utilization model, the setting step including the step of;

issuing a software call to an operating system running on the at least one processing unit;

f. distributing an application load to the computing system based on based on the predictive behavior power utilization model;

g. determining an actual power utilization by gathering second values for the process level information and the environmental metrics; and

h. updating the predictive behavior power utilization model according to actual power utilization when a difference between the actual power utilization and the predicted power utilization exceeds a predetermined threshold.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of processing units includes at least one of a plurality of central processing units, a plurality of functional units within central processing units, and a plurality of hypervisors managing virtual machines.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the state is one of a plurality of performance states.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the frequency of a processing unit.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the voltage of a processing unit.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein setting one of a plurality of performance states includes changing the frequency and the voltage of a processing unit.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein one of a plurality of performance states includes at least a first performance state and a second performance state, wherein the first performance state can bear a greater computational load than the second state.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the state is one of a plurality of sleep states.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein one of a plurality of sleep states includes at least a first sleep state and second sleep state, wherein the first sleep state has a lower wake up time than the second sleep state.