Green Computing
Aspen Systems is a leader in not only high performance computing, but in green computing as well. At Aspen Systems we recognize that all components of an HPC system need to run at their peak capabilities in order to deliver the energy efficiency that you require.
Green computing is the commitment to use the most energy efficient configurations and components available, in order to reduce one's carbon emissions. This commitment to energy efficiency also translates into a smart business practice: where pursuing sustainable computing directly reduces operating costs while further decreasing the TCO of your system. So green computing is not only good for the environment but for your bottom line as well.
Technology and communication centers already contribute to more than 2% of the global carbon emissions (surpassing the airline industry), therefore, relying on the old recipe of adding "more hardware and more power" to address computational performance is no longer a viable solution. Striking a balance between performance and power efficiency will be the new standard, and the shift towards maximizing "computations per watt" will allow sustainable computing to occur.
Green/sustainable computing can be achieved by addressing elements within the following categories: Infrastructure, Hardware and Software.
Infrastructure
With the cost of buildings and power far outstripping the cost of HPC equipment, it becomes essential to improve both building design and power delivery configurations. However, current datacenters can achieve significant increases in power efficiencies (80% - 90%), by simply upgrading to contemporary high-efficiency UPSs, PDUs and PSUs. Cooling efficiencies are also improved as the use of these efficient power components results in less heat waste.
Other cooling efficiencies can be obtained through hot-aisle/cold-aisle configurations. Isolating hot air, preventing cold/hot from mixing and applying a cooling source as close as possible to the heat source all greatly improves both cooling and power efficiencies.
The use of economizers to cool data centers with external cold air is also a growing trend. Water-side economizers can be used as well, to enhance or replace certain chiller functions. Economizers are an efficient and cost effective method for utilizing ambient air temperatures for supplemental cooling. In the winter months, Aspen Systems uses Colorado's cold air to cool our facility instead of using our Liebert system. This saves an enormous amount of energy that would otherwise be consumed. Click on the links for more information about Power and Cooling.
Hardware
As processors are designed to deliver more performance at lower energy requirements, other CPU features are being introduced that allows for improved power management and power/thermal monitoring. Furthermore, by having more dynamic control of a processor's idle (C), performance (P) and thermal (T) states, means that you can control your cluster's power consumption to reflect your specific usage needs. This can be accomplished via dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) and clock routing optimizations, both available on Intel's and AMD's latest generation of processors. Aspen Systems can even build your cluster to suspend nodes to RAM (S3) when they are not in use.
Other hardware efficiencies can be achieved by selecting the appropriate chassis (Twin 1U, Blade systems) and appropriate interconnects when designing your cluster.
Software
Building and cooling designs are changing to reflect more energy efficient requirements, while hardware manufacturers have already recognized and adopted energy-performance optimizations. What is often overlooked is software's role in improving energy efficiencies.
Virtualization and server consolidation are accepted mechanisms for reducing floor space congestion and power/cooling requirements. However, software design in general, has yet to catch up to the ability to efficiently utilize multicore/socket architectures. HPC has been ahead of the curve by using parallel code for several years now; however, more efficient MPI, resource managers and schedulers are still necessary in order to maximize the energy saving features of the next-generation processors.
Software designs from mobile technology could serve as useful templates, as mobile applications are constrained to operate within a ~3 Watt power budget! As such, a new approach to software design will have to account for energy efficiency, code bloat, reducing extraneous features all while allowing software to "under perform" in order to achieve energy efficient operations. Additionally, parallelization and multi-threading will have to be adopted and improved.
Aspen Systems can design your system for optimal performance and efficiency by tuning your cluster to use the most appropriate compilers and libraries for your applications. Furthermore, we can recommend and install the most suitable MPI, resource managers and schedulers, all which can dramatically impact the efficiency of your HPC system. Many current versions of resource managers (Moab, Platform LSF) can dynamically queue jobs based on thermal profiling - in order to reduce or prevent hot spots from occurring. These resource managers can also suspend/sleep nodes that are not being used. Scheduling policies can supplement resource managers by running non-critical jobs during off-peak hours, or running jobs on more energy-efficient nodes first.
Simply put: the more optimized your software solution is, the less computing power is required thereby reducing the total “power” needed.
Aspen Systems understands that going green requires a commitment to improving energy-efficiency in all aspects of a cluster's design. Globally, we share a commitment in pursuing efficiency, sustainability and acting in environmentally conscientious ways.
That is why Aspen Systems leads through example:
- We choose computing platforms that are RoHS 6/6 compliant
- Select computing platforms that use a minimum of plastics
- Take extra efforts to recycle all the waste materials left over from building your cluster
- Use economizers to cool our building/systems during the Colorado winters
Aspen Systems can help you go green by:
- Offering expertise in power and cooling solutions
- Offering the most energy efficient AMD and Intel processors
- Offering the most energy efficient cooling and power solutions.
- Designing your cluster with performance and energy efficiency in mind
- Optimizing your OS, compilers, libraries, MPIs, resource managers and schedulers in order to provide the best performance to energy-efficiency ratio
So no matter how stringent your green requirements are, Aspen Systems can design a solution that fits your needs. Contact your Aspen Systems sales engineer today to discuss your options.
