SC Conference - Activity Details

Dale A. Sartor  (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Green HPC II

Thursday,  03:30PM - 04:15PM

Room 18A/18B/18C/18D

As HPC electrical power moves from kilowatts to megawatts, energy efficiency of our super computer centers is becoming critical. Energy cost will soon exceed computer equipment purchase costs in the total cost of ownership. Benchmarking of dozens of computer centers has demonstrated significant variations in energy efficiency of their infrastructure. Typically for every dollar in computing energy, another dollar is spent on power delivery, and cooling. However the best computer centers reduce their infrastructure costs to 30 or 40 percent of the computational load, and 15 to 20 percent is possible. LBNL's building energy efficiency experts have been working with the IT industry and computer center operators to identify best practices, and develop new tools and technologies to improve infrastructure efficiency. LBNL has tested and adopted a number of these best practices in its own computer centers and is planning to maximize efficiency in a new UC super computer facility. Dale Sartor will present the results of this research and applications activity.