Project Seminar: Energy-Aware Computing in Heterogeneous Data Centers 2019

Prof. Dr. Andreas Polze
Max Plauth, Sven Köhler, Felix Eberhardt, Lukas Wenzel

The increasing amount of volatile renewable energy sources introduces a number of challenges for today's large-scale computing systems. To operate reliably and efficiently, computing systems must adhere not only to technical limits (i.e. thermal constraints) but they must also consider volatile characteristics of the electricity grid such as production, demand, and energy prices. Furthermore, it is always desirable to increase the energy efficiency of computing systems in order to reduce the ecological footprint as well as the operating costs.

With the increasing degree of heterogeneity in today's computing systems, the goal of this project seminar is to exploit varying hardware characteristics across CPU architectures (Intel/AMD/POWER/ARM), GPUs (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, ARM), FPGAs (Xilinx), and possibly even other Accelerators to find the best possible trade-off between energy consumption and execution time for a given workload.

In this project seminar, you will learn how to port and optimize a given workload to one or multiple target platforms of your choice. Depending on your previous knowledge and your commitment, you are free to deepen your knowledge in familiar architectures, or you can use the opportunity to get acquainted with a more exotic platform.

The objective is to assess energy requirements and execution efficiency for a wide range of computing problems and help data center operators schedule workloads according to the energy market by the hour.

Seminar

Extent: 4 SWS / 6 ECTS

Tue, 09:15 - 10:45, A-2.1

Note, that later throughout the semester no further introduction is required and you can use this slot to work on your projects.

All slides will be available in English. The lecture will be held in German, unless English is requested.

Grading

You can work alone, or in a team up to 3 persons. All students/teams are required to meet regularly with their advisor to discuss progress and plan further steps.

At the end of the semester you will give a final presentation of your findings, as well as provide a short technical report for later reference.

The final grade will be determined from your project work throughout the semester, as well as your presentation and report.

Seminar Meetings

This preliminary planning may change in course of the semester.

Date	Content/Slides	Notes
Tue, 2019-10-15	Kick-Off / Introduction
Tue, 2019-10-22	Terminology	Skeleton colorfilter.tar.gz
Tue, 2019-11-05	Integrated SIMD (ParProg19)	SIMD examples, Autovec examples
Tue, 2019-11-19	FPGA Intro