Professor Gautam Natarajan Title: Towards Green Computing: Energy Management in Data Centers

October 19, 2007
Presentation:  1:30-2:30pm; Venue: ATRC 101
Discussion: 2:30-3:00pm; Venue: VOGT room (adjacent to ATRC 101)

                  
ABSTRACT:
Data centers typically consist of hundreds to thousands of servers that consume a phenomenal amount of electric power. In the seminar we initially describe various research issues that need to be addressed in this specific context as well as the role of industrial engineers in a more generic context, namely, green computing. Then we present a resource management problem (for optimally turning off servers, moving applications, controlling server speeds, etc.) to reduce energy consumption in data centers. We take advantage of the fact that user requests vary tremendously both spatially and temporally. Using a statistical model to predict user-request patterns and a queueing model to obtain performance measures, we formulate and solve a mixed non-linear-integer programming problem for resource management. One of the bi-products of the optimization is that the system runs at very high loads with tremendous traffic variability and long-range dependence. The talk would conclude by addressing effective traffic models under such conditions.


BIOSKETCH:

N. Gautam is an associate professor in the department of Industrial and Systems Engineering with a courtesy appointment in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining Texas A&M University in 2005, he was on the Industrial Engineering faculty at Penn State University for eight years. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Operations Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1993. Gautam's interests are in optimal design, control and performance evaluation of service systems, specifically computer-communication networks, transportation systems and information flows.

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