Performance and energy consumption tradeoff in server consolidation

Abstract

Server consolidation is one of the techniques used to increase energy efficiency in datacentres. Nevertheless, the server consolidation has an inherent trade-off between performance degradation and energy consumption which has to be quantified to be managed. In this paper, the $Ci{S}^2$ index is proposed to quantify the mentioned trade-off. We validated de use of the $Ci{S}^2$ index through real experimentation. Also, these observations lead us to propose the second contribution, which focuses on the consolidation overhead. We proposed a general method to quantify this overhead and be able to manage its effect on performance degradation. To sum up, this paper improved the management of energy efficiency in datacentres’ servers through the $Ci{S}^2$ index and the server consolidation determination method.