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# Evaluating the involvement of users for reducing energy consumption of datacenters in a Cloud company

Simon Lambert, Eddy Caron, Laurent Lefèvre, Rémi Grivel

► To cite this version:

Simon Lambert, Eddy Caron, Laurent Lefèvre, Rémi Grivel. Evaluating the involvement of users for reducing energy consumption of datacenters in a Cloud company. ICT4S 2024 - ICT for Sustainability, Jun 2024, Stockholm, Sweden. hal-04588604

HAL Id: hal-04588604

https://inria.hal.science/hal-04588604

Submitted on 27 May 2024

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 4.0 International License
# Evaluating the involvement of users for reducing energy consumption of datacenters in a Cloud company

Simon Lambert¹,², Eddy Caron¹, Laurent Lefèvre¹, Rémi Grivel²

¹Université Lyon 1, Inria, CNRS, ENS Lyon, LIP, ²Ciril GROUP, SynAApS

¹firstname.lastname@ens-lyon.fr

## CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

Datacenters (DCs) account for :

* 1 to 1.5% of global electricity demand [1]

* 1% of energy-related GHG emissions [1]

Cloud Service Providers size their infrastructure to meet peak demand, which might result in general infrastructure oversizing.

Users behavior tends to increase these oversizing effects, but users can sometimes reduce infrastructures dimensions, when equipped with proper tools and knowledge.

## VM SHUTDOWN POLICY

The study takes place on a virtualization infrastructure with an embedded Virtual Machine (VM) shutdown policy, controlled by **VM owners**. Different profiles are assignable to VMs :

* **DailySTOP&START** : VM is powered off at nights, weekends, restarted automatically.

* **DailySTOP** : VM is powered off at nights, weekends, restarted manually.

* **WeeklySTOP** : VM is powered off at weekends, restarted manually.

* **NeverSTOPAuto** : VM is always on.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

**None VMs** are VMs with no tag at the time of the study. Excluding archived* VMs, 93% are tagged as per the shutdown policy.

*VMs about to be deleted, usually without a valid VM owner, or an expired VM validity date.

## USER PROFILING

We **questioned 83 VM owners** both on their knowledge of the virtualization infrastructure and awareness on DCs environmental impacts. We received 52 answers to this questionnaire.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

0: I don't know anything about it

1: I have a vague idea of the impact it can have

2: I've already seen information and/or figures on this subject

3: I've read up on the subject one or more times

4: I've taken one or more specific training courses on the subject

5: I work daily on this subject, I'm an expert

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

0: I don't know what virtualization is

1: I know our virtualization infrastructure (vSphere) but I didn't know I was responsible for one or more VMs

2: I know I'm responsible, but I don't know which VMs

3: I know some of the VMs I'm responsible for

4: I know all the VMs for which I am responsible

5: I know all the VMs for which I am responsible, and can describe the tools and services precisely, as well as the shutdown policy tag

## VM CONSOLIDATION

To further reduce power consumption, VM consolidation [2] is applied to size the infrastructure solely to powered on VMs. Simulations were conducted on an infrastructure of 400 VMs and 7 Physical Machines (PMs). A production implementation was also carried out.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

Our simulation forecasts a base power consumption reduction of 23.95%, with an **extra 8.72% reduction thanks to the users through the VM shutdown policy**.

The production implementation, which considers PM fault tolerance, results in a 12.58% consumption reduction over one week.

## INTERVIEWS

**19 VM owners were also interviewed** to better understand their decisions, motivations and expectations.

Did you hear about the VM shutdown policy ?

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

Do you use the VM shutdown policy ?

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

Do you periodically update the policy on your VMs ?

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

Why are some of your VMs not powered off ?

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Other : production, input control, etc.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

Other : performance, security, etc.

The interviews confirmed the **simple and rapid implementation** of the shutdown policy, without compromising the quality of service or the user productivity. It even enabled users to identify and fix bugs on specific VMs.

These benefits are made possible by the **technical profile of our users**. They are additional to the energy consumption reductions, which require **no prior knowledge of the environmental impacts of datacenters**.

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>

<footnote>[1] IEA, Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks, 2022</footnote>

<footnote>[2] Bermejo, B., Juiz, C. & Guerrero, C. Virtualization and consolidation: a systematic review of the past 10 years of research on energy and performance. J Supercomput 75, 808–836 (2019)</footnote>
# Evaluating the involvement of users for reducing energy consumption of datacenters in a Cloud company

Simon Lambert¹,², Eddy Caron¹, Laurent Lefèvre¹, Rémi Grivel²

¹Université Lyon 1, Inria, CNRS, ENS Lyon, LIP, ²Ciril GROUP, SynAApS

¹firstname.lastname@ens-lyon.fr

## CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

Datacenters (DCs) account for :

* 1 to 1.5% of global electricity demand [1]

* 1% of energy-related GHG emissions [1]

Cloud Service Providers size their infrastructure to meet peak demand, which might result in general infrastructure oversizing.

Users behavior tends to increase these oversizing effects, but users can sometimes reduce infrastructures dimensions, when equipped with proper tools and knowledge.

## VM SHUTDOWN POLICY

The study takes place on a virtualization infrastructure with an embedded Virtual Machine (VM) shutdown policy, controlled by **VM owners**. Different profiles are assignable to VMs :

* DailySTOP&START : VM is powered off at nights, weekends, restarted automatically.

* DailySTOP : VM is powered off at nights, weekends, restarted manually.

* WeeklySTOP : VM is powered off at weekends, restarted manually.

* NeverSTOPAuto : VM is always on.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

**None VMs** are VMs with no tag at the time of the study. Excluding archived* VMs, 93% are tagged as per the shutdown policy.

*VMs about to be deleted, usually without a valid VM owner, or an expired VM validity date.

## USER PROFILING

We **questioned 83 VM owners** both on their knowledge of the virtualization infrastructure and awareness on DCs environmental impacts. We received 52 answers to this questionnaire.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

0: I don't know anything about it

1: I have a vague idea of the impact it can have

2: I've already seen information and/or figures on this subject

3: I've read up on the subject one or more times

4: I've taken one or more specific training courses on the subject

5: I work daily on this subject, I'm an expert

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

0: I don't know what virtualization is

1: I know our virtualization infrastructure (vSphere) but I didn't know I was responsible for one or more VMs

2: I know I'm responsible, but I don't know which VMs

3: I know some of the VMs I'm responsible for

4: I know all the VMs for which I am responsible

5: I know all the VMs for which I am responsible, and can describe the tools and services precisely, as well as the shutdown policy tag

## VM CONSOLIDATION

To further reduce power consumption, VM consolidation [2] is applied to size the infrastructure solely to powered on VMs. Simulations were conducted on an infrastructure of 400 VMs and 7 Physical Machines (PMs). A production implementation was also carried out.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

Our simulation forecasts a base power consumption reduction of 23.95%, with an **extra 8.72% reduction thanks to the users through the VM shutdown policy**.

The production implementation, which considers PM fault tolerance, results in a 12.58% consumption reduction over one week.

## INTERVIEWS

**19 VM owners were also interviewed** to better understand their decisions, motivations and expectations.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

Other : production, input control, etc.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

Other : performance, security, etc.

The interviews confirmed the **simple and rapid implementation** of the shutdown policy, without compromising the quality of service or the user productivity. It even enabled users to identify and fix bugs on specific VMs.

These benefits are made possible by the **technical profile of our users**. They are additional to the energy consumption reductions, which require **no prior knowledge of the environmental impacts of datacenters**.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>

<footnote>[1] IEA, Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks, 2022</footnote>

<footnote>[2] Bermejo, B., Juiz, C. & Guerrero, C. Virtualization and consolidation: a systematic review of the past 10 years of research on energy and performance. J Supercomput 75, 808–836 (2019)</footnote>