Simulating Power Scheduling at Scale

Abstract

Comparison of power scheduling strategies at scale is challenging due to the limited availability of high performance computing (HPC) systems exposing power control to researchers. In this paper we describe PowSim, a simulator for comparing different power management strategies at large-scale for HPC systems. PowSim enables light-weight simulation of dynamically-changing hardware-enforced processor power caps at the scale of an HPC cluster, supporting power scheduling research. PowSim's architecture supports easily changing power scheduler, job scheduler, and application models to enable comparison studies. Preliminary results comparing generalized power scheduling strategies are also presented.