Modeling data center building blocks for energy-efficiency and thermal simulations

Abstract

In this paper we present a concept and specification of Data Center Efficiency Building Blocks (DEBBs), which represent hardware components of a data center complemented by descriptions of their energy efficiency. Proposed building blocks contain hardware and thermodynamic models that can be applied to simulate a data center and to evaluate its energy efficiency. DEBBs are available in an open repository being built by the CoolEmAll project. In the paper we illustrate the concept by an example of DEBB defined for the RECS multi-server system including models of its power usage and thermodynamic properties. We also show how these models are affected by specific architecture of modeled hardware and differences between various classes of applications. Proposed models are verified by a comparison to measurements on a real infrastructure. Finally, we demonstrate how DEBBs are used in data center simulations. © 2014 Springer-Verlag.