Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/235735

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Title

Online algorithms for geographical load balancing

Author(s)

Lin, Minghong;  Liu, Zhenhua;  Wierman, Adam;  Andrew, Lachlan L. H.

Abstract

It has recently been proposed that Internet energy costs, both monetary and environmental, can be reduced by exploiting temporal variations and shifting processing to data centers located in regions where energy currently has low cost. Lightly loaded data centers can then turn off surplus servers. This paper studies online algorithms for determining the number of servers to leave on in each data center, and then uses these algorithms to study the environmental potential of geographical load balancing (GLB). A commonly suggested algorithm for this setting is 'receding horizon control' (RHC), which computes the provisioning for the current time by optimizing over a window of predicted future loads. We show that RHC performs well in a homogeneous setting, in which all servers can serve all jobs equally well; however, we also prove that differences in propagation delays, servers, and electricity prices can cause RHC perform badly, So, we introduce variants of RHC that are guaranteed to perform as well in the face of such heterogeneity. These algorithms are then used to study the feasibility of powering a continent-wide set of data centers mostly by renewable sources, and to understand what portfolio of renewable energy is most effective.

Publication type

Conference paper

Source

Proceedings of the Third International Green Computing Conference (IGCC'12), San Jose, California, United States, 04-08 June 2012

Publication year

2012

Keyword(s)

Data centres;  Electricity consumption;  Energy costs;  Energy usage;  Geographical load balancing;  Internet;  Online algorithms;  Power consumption;  Receding horizon control;  Renewable energy;  Servers

Publisher

IEEE

ISBN

9781467321556, 1467321559

Publisher URL

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 IEEE. The accepted manuscript is reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.

Full text

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