Linux Kernel Improvement: Toward Dynamic Power Management of Beowulf Clusters
نویسندگان
چکیده
As a cost-effective alternative to large supercomputers, Beowulf clusters are now deployed worldwide to support scientific computing. While Beowulf clusters yield high computing performance, they also pose several challenges: 1) Heat induced hardware failure makes large scale commodity clusters fail quite frequently, 2) Powering all the computer nodes without adapting to the varying work load makes Beowulf cluster less cost-effective. In this paper, we address these issues by introducing Dynamic Power Management (DPM) into the Beowulf clusters. DPM of a Beowulf cluster means dynamically reconfiguring the cluster nodes so that node will be enabled quickly when requested and be placed into a low power state quickly to save power when the service is completed. DPM of the cluster relies on the availability of power management technologies on each computer node. This paper evaluates the current power management technologies available in computers and presents a Linux kernel improvement that makes Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) exploitable in a cluster environment. A simple fixed timeout DPM algorithm is also evaluated on a 128 node Beowulf cluster.
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