EECluster Wiki

Tool for energy-efficient resource management in HPC clusters

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EECluster description

Today, High Performance Computing clusters (HPC) are an essential tool owing to they are an excellent platform for solving a wide range of problems through parallel and distributed applications. Nonetheless, HPC clusters consume large amounts of energy, which combined with notably increasing electricity prices are having an important economical impact, forcing owners to reduce operation costs.

[[img src=eecluster_dashboard.jpg alt="Snapshot of EECluster´s dashboard" height="400px"]] Figure 1. Snapshot of EECluster´s dashboard

To reduce the high-energy consumptions of HPC clusters, the subproject DISCO of DisCoSound has developed the software tool EECluster for managing the energy-efficient allocation of the cluster resources. To do so, EECluster uses a Hybrid Genetic Fuzzy System as the decision-making mechanism that elicits part of its rule base dependent on the cluster workload scenario, delivering good compliance with the administrator preferences.

[[img src=trace.jpg alt="Cluster simulation trace of a scenario that exhibits a high degree of variation in the job arrival" height="200px"]] Figure 2. Cluster simulation trace of a scenario that exhibits a high degree of variation in the job arrival

Figure 1 shows a snapshot of the EECluster dashboard and Figure 2 illustrates graphically EECluster´s behaviour under different sets of administrator preferences, from having no impact on the QoS to a controlled increase on the jobs waiting times and achieving extraordinary energy savings. As can be seen, the HGFS used as the decision-making mechanism in the EECluster tool can produce very different behaviours, thus adapting to any desired set of preferences that the cluster administrator may have at any given moment.

Also experimental studies have been made using workloads from the Scientific Modelling Cluster at Oviedo University to evaluate the results obtained with the adoption of this tool. In 2015, a Technology Transfer contract has been signed with ASAC Comunicaciones, a company that has one of the few TIER III clusters certified by the Uptime Institute in Spain.

Using EECluster

Project Members:

EECluster Admin (admin)