On energy efficient flow provisioning in air-cooled data servers

• Published in: Control engineering practice Vol. 89; pp. 103 - 112
• Main Authors: Lucchese, Riccardo, Johansson, Andreas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2019
• Subjects: Control Engineering; Controlled data center cooling; Controlled flow provisioning; Reglerteknik; Server thermal management; Server thermal models; Controlled flow provisioning; Server thermal management; Controlled data center cooling; Server thermal models
• ISSN: 0967-0661; 1873-6939; 1873-6939
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2019.05.019

This study considers how to efficiently manage the thermal state of data servers by provisioning their cooling airflow dynamically. It introduces a thermal network framework that is tailored to capture the temperature dynamics of the on-board thermal inertiae. On top of this modeling, it devises LeakageCooling, a novel flow provisioning controller that balances the temperature dependent leakage dissipation within the electronic chips and the power consumed by the local fans to produce the cooling airflow. The prediction capabilities of the proposed modeling and the overall control performance are assessed over several relevant experimental scenarios on an Open Compute Windmill V2 server. •Dynamical flow provisioning for the thermal management of servers.•Accurate temperature state predictions using a reduced order model.•Cooling cost accounts for both the flow provisioning cost and leakage dissipation.•Experimental evaluations on the Open Compute Windmill V2 server platform.•Reporting on the optimal provisioning rate, component and exhaust temperatures.