Bounding the Resource Savings of Utility Computing Models
Artur Andrzejak, Martin F. Arlitt, Jerry Rolia · 2002
In this paper we characterize resource usage in six data centers with approximately 1,000 servers. The results substantiate common knowledge that computing resources are typically under-utilized. Utility computing has been proposed as a way of increasing utilization and hence e#ciency. Using an o#-line integer programming model we bound the potential gain in e#ciency for several di#erent utility computing models. In a detailed study of a subset of the data center servers, we found that utility computing o#ered the potential to reduce the peak and mean number of CPUs needed by up to 53% and 79%, respectively.