CAREER: Coordinated Power and Thermal Management for Virtualized Data Centers: Algorithms, Framework, and Middleware

近年来，对于正在迅速扩大托管服务器数量的大型数据中心来说，电力和热量控制已成为最严重的问题之一。除了降低运营成本，精确控制功耗和散热是避免由于服务器密度越来越高(例如刀片服务器)而导致的电源容量过载或过热导致系统故障的重要方法。随着许多数据中心开始采用虚拟化技术进行资源共享，导致利用率和功耗增加，电力和热量控制变得更加具有挑战性。这个职业项目涉及以下研究课题。1)基于反馈控制理论，我们计划设计和评估先进的功率和热力控制算法，以实现控制精度和系统稳定性的分析保证。首先，我们在多个层次上提出了新的控制算法，以控制虚拟服务器环境的功率和应用程序性能。其次，我们提出了高度可扩展的分层算法来控制整个大规模数据中心的功耗。第三，设计串级控制算法，通过与电源控制回路协调，控制散热和处理热突发事件。2)提出了电源热控中间件的设计方案。我们的中间件将为多个控制回路在不同的层上协同工作找到最优的协调策略，然后对它们进行配置，以实现期望的控制功能。此外，我们的中间件可以自动化控制器设计和分析的过程，以获得通用的控制解决方案。3)我们还将研究硬盘、网络交换机等其他组件，以及可控性和可行性问题，为当今大型数据中心提供完整的电源和热控框架。

In recent years, power and thermal control has become one of the most serious concerns for large-scale data centers that are rapidly expanding the number of hosted servers. In addition to reducing operating costs, precisely controlling power consumption and heat dissipation is an essential way to avoid system failures caused by power capacity overload or overheating due to increasingly high server density (e.g., blade servers). Power and thermal control becomes even more challenging as many data centers start to adopt the virtualization technology for resource sharing, leading to increased utilization and power consumption. This CAREER project addresses the following research topics. 1) We plan to design and evaluate advanced power and thermal control algorithms, based on feedback control theory, to achieve analytic assurance of control accuracy and system stability. First, we propose novel control algorithms at multiple layers to control power and application performance for virtualized server environments. Second, we propose highly scalable hierarchical algorithms to control the power consumption of an entire large-scale data center. Third, we will design cascaded control algorithms to control heat dissipation and handle thermal emergencies by coordinating with power control loops. 2) We propose power and thermal control middleware. Our middleware will find the optimal coordination strategy for multiple control loops to work together at different layers, and then configure them to achieve the desired control functions. In addition, our middleware can automate the procedure of controller design and analysis for a universal control solution. 3) We will also investigate other components such as hard drives and network switches, as well as the controllability and feasibility problems, in order to provide a complete power and thermal control framework for today's large-scale data centers.