VMPlanner: Optimizing virtual machine placement and traffic flow routing to reduce network power costs in cloud data centers

In recent years, the power costs of cloud data centers have become a practical concern and have attracted significant attention from both industry and academia. Most of the early works on data center energy efficiency have focused on the biggest power consumers (i.e., computer servers and cooling systems), yet without taking the networking part into consideration. However, recent studies have revealed that the network elements consume 10–20% of the total power in the data center, which poses a great challenge to effectively reducing network power cost without adversely affecting overall network performance. Based on the analysis on topology characteristics and traffic patterns of data centers, this paper presents a novel approach, called VMPlanner, for network power reduction in the virtualization-based data centers. The basic idea of VMPlanner is to optimize both virtual machine placement and traffic flow routing so as to turn off as many unneeded network elements as possible for power saving. We formulate the optimization problem, analyze its hardness, and solve it by designing VMPlanner as a stepwise optimization approach with three approximation algorithms. VMPlanner is implemented and evaluated in a simulated environment with traffic traces collected from a data center test-bed, and the experiment results illustrate the efficacy and efficiency of this approach.     

基于需求响应的家庭节电省电优化策略研究

电力需求的日益增长给电网发电及输电环节带来了巨大挑战,配用电网负荷率的增加也给电力系统正常运行带来了安全隐患.运用智能电力需求响应技术,有效整合用户侧电网响应潜力以提升电网运行的安全性、稳定性和经济性值得深入研究.基于智能用电双向交互技术,在满足用户用电要求的基础上,最大限度满足用户舒适度及电网调峰需求为目标,提出了居民侧负荷参与电力需求响应的家庭用电优化方案,重点提出了节电省电控制策略,有负荷转移和负荷调控两种方法,可为家庭提供系统的、全面的省电措施.结合提出的控制策略,基于Matlab平台进行具体仿真,通过波形和数据的分析,详细阐述了需求响应控制策略的要点和价值,也为以后的技术发展提供了数据信息.     

Towards designing a green data center farm for Internet services: Iran’s case study

Energy consumption has become a critical design factor in today’s data centers. In recent years, extensive research has been done to address power–performance trade-off in data centers considering both IT equipments and cooling infrastructures (e.g., thermal-aware task scheduling, server consolidation, load balancing and geographical load balancing to name a few). This paper introduces a design-time technique that targets energy-efficient design of a green data center farm in Iran. Workload predictions, geographical maps of wind speed and solar radiation, data center and renewable resources configurations are used as a priori to design an energy-efficient data center farm for Internet services. The proposed problem is mathematically formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem and is effectively solved using a coordinate descent-based method. We also show that with some minor modification, our proposed technique can be applied at run-time for the purpose of change management. The experimental results show that the proposed method can lead to 11.6 % cost saving on average over conventional approaches.     

高校数据中心的建设研究

随着高校校园网建设过程中数据中心的应用需求不断增加,导致服务器数量的增长过快,功耗上升迅速。数据中心面临着系统管理复杂,资源利用率偏低,安全控制与数据备份复杂,运行维护成本昂贵等问题。本文对现有的服务器虚拟化技术进行了分析和比较,并对数据中心架设虚拟化平台提出了实施建议。     

虚拟化数据中心全局能耗优化调度方法

虚拟化数据中心的制冷和供电设备能耗比重大且浪费严重,但当前虚拟化能耗优化的研究仅考虑IT设备能耗,针对该问题,通过对数据中心能耗逻辑的研究,提出一种虚拟化数据中心全局能耗优化调度方法。该方法通过感知数据中心负载和热分布状况,依据虚拟化调度规则生成动态调度策略,并对虚拟设备组的制冷供电设备进行同步调度,减少数据中心冗余制冷和设备空载损耗,以此最小化数据中心能耗。实验结果表明,该调度方法可节省制冷设备近26％的冗余制冷,并提升供电设备8％左右的供电效率,提高数据中心的能耗有效性,降低整体能耗。     

The method to secure scalability and high density in cloud data-center

Recently IT infrastructures change to cloud computing, the demand of cloud data center increased. Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort, the interest on data centers to provide the cloud computing services is increasing economically and variably. This study analyzes the factors to improve the power efficiency while securing scalability of data centers and presents the considerations for cloud data center construction in terms of power distribution method, power density per rack and expansion unit separately. The result of this study may be used for making rational decisions concerning the power input, voltage transformation and unit of expansion when constructing a cloud data center or migrating an existing data center to a cloud data center.     

\upmu \mathrm{DC}^2: unified data collection for data centers

Modern data centers are playing an important role in a world full of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Many efforts have been paid to build a more efficient, cleaner data center for economic, social, and environmental benefits. This objective is being enabled by emerging technologies such as cloud computing and software-defined networking (SDN). However, a data center is inherently heterogeneous, consisting of servers, networking devices, cooling devices, power supply devices, etc., resulting in daunting challenges in its management and control. Previous approaches typically focus on only a single domain, for example, traditional cloud computing for server resource (e.g., computing resource and storage resource) management and SDN for network management. In a similar context of networking device heterogeneity, network function virtualization has been proposed to offer a standard abstract interface to manage all networking devices. In this research, we take the challenge of building a suit of unified middleware to monitor and control the three intrinsic subsystems in a data centre, including ICT, power, and cooling. Specifically, we present \(\upmu \mathrm{DC}^2\) , a unified scalable IP-based data collection system for data center management with elevated extensibility, as an initial step to offer a unified platform for data center operations. Our system consists of three main parts, i.e., data-source adapters for information collection over various subsystems in a data center, a unified message bus for data transferring, and a high-performance database for persistent data storage. We have conducted performance benchmark for the key building components, namely messaging server and database, confirming that our system is scalable for a data center with high device density and real-time management requirements. Key features, such as configuration files, dynamical module loading, and data compression, enhance our implementation with high extensibility and performance. The effectiveness of our proposed data collection system is verified by sample applications, such as, traffic flow migration for load balancing, VM migration for resource reservation, and server power management for hardware safety. This research lays out a foundation for a unified data centre management in future.     

Green Approach for Joint Management of Geo-Distributed Data Centers and Interconnection Networks

Every time an Internet user downloads a video, shares a picture, or sends an email, his/her device addresses a data center and often several of them. These complex systems feed the web and all Internet applications with their computing power and information storage, but they are very energy hungry. The energy consumed by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures is currently more than 4% of the worldwide consumption and it is expected to double in the next few years. Data centers and communication networks are responsible for a large portion of the ICT energy consumption and this has stimulated in the last years a research effort to reduce or mitigate their environmental impact. Most of the approaches proposed tackle the problem by separately optimizing the power consumption of the servers in data centers and of the network. However, the Cloud computing infrastructure of most providers, which includes traditional telcos that are extending their offer, is rapidly evolving toward geographically distributed data centers strongly integrated with the network interconnecting them. Distributed data centers do not only bring services closer to users with better quality, but also provide opportunities to improve energy efficiency exploiting the variation of prices in different time zones, the locally generated green energy, and the storage systems that are becoming popular in energy networks. In this paper, we propose an energy aware joint management framework for geo-distributed data centers and their interconnection network. The model is based on virtual machine migration and formulated using mixed integer linear programming. It can be solved using state-of-the art solvers such as CPLEX in reasonable time. The proposed approach covers various aspects of Cloud computing systems. Alongside, it jointly manages the use of green and brown energies using energy storage technologies. The obtained results show that significant energy cost savings can be achieved compared to a baseline strategy, in which data centers do not collaborate to reduce energy and do not use the power coming from renewable resources.     

A mixture of HMM, GA, and Elman network for load prediction in cloud-oriented data centers

The rapid growth of computational power demand from scientific, business, and Web applications has led to the emergence of cloud-oriented data centers. These centers use pay-as-you-go execution environments that scale transparently to the user. Load prediction is a significant cost-optimal resource allocation and energy saving approach for a cloud computing environment. Traditional linear or nonlinear prediction models that forecast future load directly from historical information appear less effective. Load classification before prediction is necessary to improve prediction accuracy. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to forecast the future load for cloud-oriented data centers. First, a hidden Markov model （HMM） based data clustering method is adopted to classify the cloud load. The Bayesian information criterion and Akaike information criterion are employed to automatically determine the optimal HMM model size and cluster numbers. Trained HMMs are then used to identify the most appropriate cluster that possesses the maximum likelihood for current load. With the data from this cluster, a genetic algorithm optimized Elman network is used to forecast future load. Experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms other approaches reported in previous works.     

A multitime-steps-ahead prediction approach for scheduling live migration in cloud data centers

One of the major challenges facing cloud computing is to accurately predict future resource usage to provision data centers for future demands. Cloud resources are constantly in a state of flux, making it difficult for forecasting algorithms to produce accurate predictions for short times scales (ie, 5 minutes to 1 hour). This motivates the research presented in this paper, which compares nonlinear and linear forecasting methods with a sequence prediction algorithm known as a recurrent neural network to predict CPU utilization and network bandwidth usage for live migration. Experimental results demonstrate that a multitime-ahead prediction algorithm reduces bandwidth consumption during critical times and improves overall efficiency of a data center.     

Distributed estimation via iterative projections with application to power network monitoring

This work presents a distributed method for control centers to monitor the operating condition of a power network, i.e., to estimate the network state, and to ultimately determine the occurrence of threatening situations. State estimation has been recognized to be a fundamental task for network control centers to operate safely and reliably a power grid. We consider (static) state estimation problems, in which the state vector consists of the voltage magnitude and angle at all network buses. We consider the state to be linearly related to network measurements, which include power flows, current injections, and voltage phasors at some buses. We admit the presence of several cooperating control centers, and we design two distributed methods for them to compute the minimum variance estimate of the state, given the network measurements. The two distributed methods rely on different modes of cooperation among control centers: in the first method an incremental mode of cooperation is used, whereas, in the second method, a diffusive interaction is implemented. Our procedures, which require each control center to know only the measurements and the structure of a subpart of the whole network, are computationally efficient and scalable with respect to the network dimension, provided that the number of control centers also increases with the network cardinality. Additionally, a finite-memory approximation of our diffusive algorithm is proposed, and its accuracy is characterized. Finally, our estimation methods are exploited to develop a distributed algorithm to detect corrupted network measurements.     

Integrated smart grid systems security threat model

The smart grid (SG) integrates the power grid and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with the aim of achieving more reliable and safe power transmission and distribution to the customers. Integrating the power grid with the ICT exposes the SG to systems security threats and vulnerabilities that could be compromised by malicious users and attackers. This paper presents a SG systems threats analysis and integrated SG Systems Security Threat Model (SSTM). The reference architecture of the SG, with its components and communication interfaces used to exchange the energy-related information, is integrated with the results of SG systems security threat analysis to produce a comprehensive, integrated SG SSTM. The SG SSTM in this paper helps better depict and understand the vulnerabilities exploited by attackers to compromise the components and communication links of the SG. The SG SSTM provides a reference of the systems security threats for industrial security practitioners, and can be used for design and implementation of SG systems security controls and countermeasures.     

Energy-saving model for SDN data centers

With the development of the Internet, data centers have become vital infrastructures which provide computing, storage and other services for the networks. According to statistics, data centers consume large amount of electricity all around the world. In most cases, the majority of network devices in data centers are relatively idle, resulting in a waste of energy. Software defined network (SDN) was proposed by UC Berkeley and Stanford University around 2008, which allows the administrators to manage the network and set configurations through abstraction of lower level functionality. It also separates the control plane and the data plane, so administrators can control the network traffic through centralized controller instead of access to physical devices. This paper discusses the energy-saving model in data center networks based on SDN. We propose two different energy-saving algorithms, which can be applied to different data centers. Through centralized management and preprocessing traffic by SDN, we get better energy efficiency and reduce the energy cost by 30–40 %. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on energy saving in SDN architecture which provides two different algorithms that can be applied in different scenarios.     

Virtual network embedding for power savings of servers and switches in elastic data center networks弹性数据中心网络中的服务器和交换机联合节能虚拟网络嵌入机制

Currently, the elastic interconnection has realized the high-rate data transmission among data centers (DCs). Thus, the elastic data center network (EDCN) emerged. In EDCNs, it is essential to achieve the virtual network (VN) embedding, which includes two main components: VM (virtual machine) mapping and VL (virtual link) mapping. In VM mapping, we allocate appropriate servers to hold VMs. While for VL mapping, an optimal substrate path is determined for each virtual lightpath. For the VN embedding in EDCNs, the power efficiency is a significant concern, and some solutions were proposed through sleeping light-duty servers. However, the increasing communication traffic between VMs leads to a serious energy dissipation problem, since it also consumes a great amount of energy on switches even utilizing the energy-efficient optical transmission technique. In this paper, considering load balancing and power-efficient VN embedding, we formulate the problem and design a novel heuristic for EDCNs, with the objective to achieve the power savings of servers and switches. In our solution, VMs are mapped into a single DC or multiple DCs with the short distance between each other, and the servers in the same cluster or adjacent clusters are preferred to hold VMs. Such that, a large amount of servers and switches will become vacant and can go into sleep mode. Simulation results demonstrate that our method performs well in terms of power savings and load balancing. Compared with benchmarks, the improvement ratio of power efficiency is 5%–13%.     

软件定义网络中利用IMKVS结合NFV的分布式网络负载均衡策略

社交网络和其他云应用程序应该能对从数据中心发出的请求作出快速响应,实现这种请求的技术之一是内存中的键值存储（IMKVS）,它是一种缓存机制,目的是为了提高整体用户体验。一般地,IMKVS系统使用一致性哈希来决定在哪存储目标,一致性哈希使用起来方法简单,但可能引起网络负载的不平衡。为了提高IMKVS的缓存性能,提出一种软件定义网络中利用IMKVS结合NFV的分布式网络负载均衡策略。该策略包含两个阶段,第一阶段设计通用的SDN负载平衡器的模块,以运行不同的负载平衡算法;第二阶段是基于IMKVS的专业化缓存,可以实现通信管理和数据复制。仿真结果表明,相比于一致性哈希,缓存服务器上的负载可改善24%,网络上的负载可改善7%,策略能够使资源利用更合理,获得更好的用户体验。     

基于机器学习特性的数据中心能耗优化方法

随着互联网的发展,各种类型的数据呈爆炸式增长.通过机器学习的方法对大量数据进行实时或离线的分析,获取规律性信息,已成为各行业提升决策准确性的重要途径.因此,这些机器学习算法成为各个数据中心运行的主要应用.然而,随着数据规模的增大和数据中心面临的能耗问题的突出,如何实现这些算法的低功耗处理,已成为实现绿色数据中心亟待解决的关键问题之一.为了实现对这些机器算法的绿色计算,首先对运行在数据中心中的关键算法进行了深入的分析,并观察到在这些算法中存在大量的冗余计算.在此基础上,设计和实现了一种面向数据中心典型应用的低功耗调度策略.该算法通过对不同计算部分的输入数据进行匹配来判断计算过程中的冗余部分,并对算法进行调度.实验数据显示,对于数据中心的两种典型应用k-means和PageRank,该算法可以实现23%和17%的能耗节约.     

面向云计算的数据中心网络体系结构设计

近年来,云计算技术的蓬勃发展为整个IT行业带来了巨大变革.传统数据中心网络拓扑构建方式及网络层控制平面的运行机制存在固化性,已经难以满足新形势下日益增长的高性能及高性价比需求,并且无法支持云环境下更加灵活的按带宽租赁数据中心网络的运营方式.因此,提出了一种通过低造价的可编程交换机来构建具有高连通性的非树状数据中心网络的方式,并设计了可编程交换机与服务器2.5层代理协同工作的基于凸优化的虚拟网络带宽控制管理机制,从而提供足够的灵活性以对资源虚拟化技术提供更好的支持.实验表明,新型体系结构在降低构建成本的同时大幅提高了数据中心网络的吞吐量并提供了更加灵活的网络带宽分配机制.     

Anomaly Detection and Classification in Streaming PMU Data in Smart Grids

The invention of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) produce synchronized phasor measurements with high resolution real time monitoring and control of power system in smart grids that make possible. PMUs are used in transmitting data to Phasor Data Concentrators (PDC) placed in control centers for monitoring purpose. A primary concern of system operators in control centers is maintaining safe and efficient operation of the power grid. This can be achieved by continuous monitoring of the PMU data that contains both normal and abnormal data. The normal data indicates the normal behavior of the grid whereas the abnormal data indicates fault or abnormal conditions in power grid. As a result, detecting anomalies/abnormal conditions in the fast flowing PMU data that reflects the status of the power system is critical. A novel methodology for detecting and categorizing abnormalities in streaming PMU data is presented in this paper. The proposed method consists of three modules namely, offline Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), online GMM for identifying anomalies and clustering ensemble model for classifying the anomalies. The significant features of the proposed method are detecting anomalies while taking into account of multivariate nature of the PMU dataset, adapting to concept drift in the flowing PMU data without retraining the existing model unnecessarily and classifying the anomalies. The proposed model is implemented in Python and the testing results prove that the proposed model is well suited for detection and classification of anomalies on the fly.     

Stability analysis of efficient solutions in multiobjective integer programming: A case study in load management

This paper presents a multiobjective linear integer programming model for supporting the choice of remote load control strategies in electric distribution network management. The model takes into account the main concerns in load management, considering three objective functions: minimization of the peak demand as perceived by the distribution network dispatch center, maximization of the utility profit associated with the energy services delivered by the controlled loads and minimization of the discomfort caused to consumers. The problem was analyzed using an interactive reference point method for multiobjective integer (and mixed-integer) linear programming. This approach exploits the use of the branch-and-bound algorithm for solving the reference point scalarizing programs through which efficient solutions are computed. Post-optimality techniques enable a stability analysis of the efficient solutions by means of computing and displaying graphically sets of reference points that correspond to the same solution.     

Power reduction in HPC data centers: a joint server placement and chassis consolidation approach

Size and number of high-performance data centers are rapidly growing all around the world in recent years. The growth in the leakage power consumption of servers along with its exponential dependence on the ever increasing process variation in nanometer technologies has made it inevitable to move toward variation-aware power reduction strategies in data centers. In this paper, we address the problem of joint server placement and chassis consolidation to minimize power consumption of high-performance computing data centers under process variation. To this end, we introduce two variation-aware server placement heuristics as well as an integer linear programming (ILP)-based server placement method to find the best location of each server in the data center based on its power consumption and the data center heat recirculation model. We then incorporate a novel ILP-based variation-aware chassis consolidation technique to find the optimum task assignment solution under the obtained server placement approach to minimize total power consumption. Experimental results show that by applying the proposed joint variation-aware server placement and chassis consolidation techniques, up to 14.6 % improvement can be obtained at common data center utilization rates compared to state-of-the-art variation-unaware approaches.