Chloregy

An interesting report in Computerworld Australia a couple of weeks ago about a couple of researchers at the University of Sydney who have developed scheduling algorithms which dynamically allocate tasks in a data centre to minimise energy consumption.

The patented algorithms, called Energy Conscious Scheduling (ECS), act as middleware that knows the operating system and the hardware and so can make decisions as to what to do with different tasks.  The algorithms use a processor’s dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) capability to allocate tasks to minimise completion time and energy use.

“In doing so it makes sure whatever decisions are made are energy-conscious,” Albert Zomaya, one of the researchers, is quoted as saying in the article.

It’s that quote that caught my eye.  It really sums up what green It is all about.  We’re talking hardware here, but you could equally say that in the future virtually every enterprise applications will need to be ‘energy-conscious’.

An ECS product is expected to be available by the end of 2010.

© The Green IT Review (www.thegreenitreport.com)

Source: http://www.thegreenitreview.com/2009/09/energy-conscious-scheduling-in-data.html