Energy Efficient Servers: Blueprints for Data Center Optimization

Energy Efficient Servers: Blueprints for Data Center Optimization introduces engineers and IT professionals to the power management technologies and techniques used in energy efficient servers. The book includes a deep examination of different features used in processors, memory, interconnects, I/O devices, and other platform components. It outlines the power and performance impact of these features and the role firmware and software play in initialization and control. Using examples from cloud, HPC, and enterprise environments, the book demonstrates how various power management technologies are utilized across a range of server utilization. It teaches the reader how to monitor, analyze, and optimize their environment to best suit their needs. It shares optimization techniques used by data center administrators and system optimization experts at the world’s most advanced data centers.

What you’ll learn

• Develop a deep understanding of power management in modern servers – from data center and systems software to low-level processor technologies – and all the pieces in-between.
• Build an understanding of technologies used in cores, caches, memory, system agents, processor interconnects, and PCI-E to manage power.
• Learn techniques for monitoring and characterizing server power management technologies including component and system level impact.
• Develop strategies to improve infrastructure utilization and cost-effectiveness, to guide configuration and purchasing decisions, and to enhance application deployment.
• Learn new techniques to optimize a server for energy efficiency while still meeting the service level requirements of software, related systems in the data center, and end customers.

Who this book is for

Primarily: Engineers and IT professionals. More broadly, the book appeals to a wide technologist audience – anyone who designs or relies on a server to run services and applications – from software engineers, to system administrators, to equipment and system manufacturers, to data center operators.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Why Data Center Efficiency Matters
Chapter 2: CPU and Memory Power Management
Chapter 3: Memory and I/O Power Management
Chapter 4: Software Architecture
Chapter 5: BIOS and Management Firmware
Chapter 6: Operating Systems
Chapter 7: Monitoring
Chapter 8: Characterization and Optimization
Chapter 9: Data Center Management
Chapter 10: Terms and Technology Appendix