Patent ID: 8700929

Claim:
A method of controlling power usage in a data center, comprising: monitoring a power usage of a plurality of computers in the data center; generating a signal indicating that the monitored power usage is within a threshold of a maximum power capacity; in response to the signal, adjusting performance of one or more of the plurality of computers by managing a manner in which computing jobs are executed at the one or more of the plurality of computers to provide for compliance of the monitored power usage of the plurality of computers with an available power capacity for the plurality of computers, wherein adjusting performance includes adjusting job scheduling in the plurality of computers by: determining that a first group of the computing jobs for execution on a particular subset of the plurality of computers on an identified rack that supports the particular subset of plurality of computers has a first priority; determining that a second group of the computing jobs for execution on the particular subset of the plurality of computers on the identified rack that supports the particular subset of plurality of computers has a second priority that is higher than the first priority; and scheduling the second group of jobs to begin execution by the particular subset of computers on the identified rack that supports the particular subset of computers before the first subset of jobs based, at least in part, on an operating capacity of the particular subset of computers being at or near a maximum operating capacity; based on the compliance of the monitored power usage of the plurality of computers and the adjusted performance of the one or more of the plurality of computers, deploying an additional portion of computers in the data center; and monitoring a power usage of the plurality of computers and the additional portion of computers in the data center for compliance with the available power capacity for the plurality of computers.