ACADEMIA

• The Galicia Supercomputing Center saves up to 135,000 euros per year by implementing measures to optimize energy efficiency
• Adaptation of equipment to control the temperature in the FinisTerrae room allows savings of up to 80% on some elements
• Advances to be introduced in the future implementation of programs that do allow up to 30% more calculations with the same power

The Plan for Efficiency and Energy Consumption at the Supercomputing Center of Galicia (CESGA) started in 2010 as it did in 2012 is to save up to 135,000 euros thanks to a lowering power consumption 30%, implementing a set of measures that allow optimization that, while this reduction was obtained, increasing the calculating ability 40%.

Among the measures in place to achieve this breakthrough, is the inclusion of energy efficiency and measurable value in the process of purchasing equipment, renovate critical equipment with more energy efficient use and optimize cooling technology of the data processing center and heat recovery, among others.

Thus, with the implementation of the plan, they switched fans for the data processing center to a new variable speed that require a fivefold lower consumption and organized the performance of jobs in terms of computing power requirements of each one in relation to the cost per kilowatt, which varies depending on the month and even the time of day.

Optimizing the performance of jobs is very important, as calculation demands of users tend to be always greater than the available computing power, originating as a result of job queues. The efficient management of the resources required by each job reduces waiting time and, in some cases, allows the temporary shutdown of some servers, thereby saving energy and reducing the emissions.

RESEARCH IN MOTION

Looking ahead, the CESGA is developing its own research projects in the field of energy efficiency. Specifically, it is assumed that modern processors provide detailed information about how they are being used, how often data is loaded from memory, or the number of operations that are being done and what type. CESGA is looking into how to use the statistical information provided by the processor to optimize access to the RAM, rearranging the way the data is stored to increase efficiency in accessing them.

In the work done so far they found that to improve the efficiency of program implementation to 30% by implementing progress: from the point of view of energy efficiency, stop wasting energy on the detours in circuits, and reduced time of the calculation assumes a direct reduction in energy consumption. These studies are now being adapted to the production environment, so they are not available yet.

CESGA director, Javier García Tobío, explains that in the future "perhaps the most significant savings is to perform other tasks more efficiently from the energy point of view, not just computational. Here, there is still much to investigate and requires that the hardware/software systems provide more information on the direct energy consumption of programs."

OBJECTIVE 2020

The European Commission aims by 2020 to save 20% of primary energy and in the energy efficiency Directive 2006/32 has set a target to obtain approximate energy savings of 9% by 2016.

The Spanish administration made its commitment through the Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Savings 2011-2020 and in the case of Galicia, the regional government has a Savings Plan and Energy Efficiency in Public Administration from Galicia 2011-2013, which is the subject of CESGA.

Additional information concerning CESGA actions in the field of energy efficiency:
https://www.cesga.es/es/diseminacion/conversaciones/conversaciones_JavierCacheiro

For more information contact:
Ignacio López Cabido
Subdirector Técnico del CESGA
+34 981 569810
nlopez(at)cesga(dot)es