Buffalo: New University at Buffalo School of Management research devises data center energy conservation strategy

The University at Buffalo School of Management (UB) has announced that recent research has discovered a strategy to conserve data center energy consumption and optimize processing performance. It found that data center managers can reduce energy consumption 10-30%. This can be done, the researchers said, by consolidating jobs to as “few servers as possible” when workloads are high, and then distributing the workload evenly across all servers when loads are then low. 

Ram Ramesh, PhD, professor of management science and systems at UB School of Management said that data centers consume a “tremendous amount of energy” due to their heat generation. Ramesh outlined, “when the servers communicate across racks, energy consumption goes through the roof.”

“By attaining an efficient balance in this tradeoff, companies can reduce their environmental impact, complete jobs on time and save millions of dollars in energy costs each year,” Ramesh added.

Speaking about the salience and applicability of this research, Ramesh commented: “The rise in energy costs coupled with the urgent need to reduce the carbon footprint together create an imperative for new approaches to achieve efficiency.”