CSR: Medium: Provisioning and Harnessing Energy Storage for Datacenter Demand Response

数据中心的电力消耗引起了经济、社会和环境方面的关注。大型数据中心每年花费数百万美元的运营支出(OP-EX)来支付电费和配置电力输送网络，以适应峰值耗电量，即使这种耗电量很少持续。在时间上(随时间推移)和空间上(跨数据中心区域，甚至跨数据中心)重塑耗电量，广义上称为需求响应(DR)，是降低成本上限和运营成本的常用技术。到目前为止，数据中心灾难恢复主要使用计算旋钮--整合、调度、迁移和电源状态调制--来管理功耗。该项目将研究一套利用数据中心中的能量存储设备(ESD)用于灾难恢复的新的补充技术。该项目将探索与数据中心电源层次结构中的ESD的配置--类型、容量和位置--相关的具体问题。它还将开发从这些设备采购的控制技术，并将其使用与当前的计算灾难恢复技术相结合，同时优化性能、成本、可用性和ESD健康相关标准。这项研究将对数据中心降低电力成本和获取可再生能源的能力产生直接影响。从这项工作中得到的平台、模型和功率轨迹可能对数据中心的进一步ESD研究有用。该项目还将加强相关领域的跨学科课程，并产生新的本科生荣誉论文项目。

Power consumption of datacenters poses economic, societal and environmental concerns. A large datacenter spends millions of dollars in yearly operational expenditures (op-ex) paying its electricity bills, and in provisioning the power delivery network, to accommodate the peak power draw, even if this draw is rarely sustained. Re-shaping the power draw temporally (over time) and spatially (across regions of the datacenter, or even across datacenters), broadly referred to as Demand Response (DR), is a common technique to reduce cap-ex and op-ex costs. Until now, datacenter DR has primarily used computing knobs -- consolidation, scheduling, migration, and power state modulation -- to manage the power draw. This project will investigate a novel set of complementary techniques leveraging Energy Storage Devices (ESDs) in the datacenter for DR. The project will explore specific issues related to provisioning -- type, capacity and location -- ESDs in the datacenter power hierarchy. It will also develop control techniques for sourcing from these devices, and coupling their usage with current computing DR techniques, all the while optimizing for performance, cost, availability and ESD health related criteria. This research will have a direct impact on datacenter power cost reduction and the ability to source renewable energy. The platforms, models and power traces from this work can be useful to further ESD research in datacenters. This project will also enhance interdisciplinary curriculum in the related areas, and lead to new undergraduate honor's thesis projects.