Energy-Efficient Scheduling on Milliclusters with Performance Constraints

Today´s datacenters and large scale enterprise computing are power hungry. A lot of research effort is devoted in industry and academy to address this challenging issue. In this context, a new type of enterprise computing platform is being investigated. This computing platform is composed of hundred of millicomputers, each requiring orders of magnitude less power. The millicomputing aims to significantly increase the energy efficiency of data centers by delivering high performance computing. However, this approach brings challenges that must be met in order to compete with the current practice. This paper addresses two such critical challenges. First, it suggests how to decompose large applications into smaller tasks, better suited to millicomputers. Then, it casts the performance oriented and energy efficient problem into a soft real-time scheduling problem, for which several algorithms are then proposed and evaluated. Sensitivity analysis is used to provide insights into the model, and plan the evaluation of the scheduling algorithms. The contention found in multi-core millicomputing processors is also accounted for.