Entropy is a software solution for energy management of data centers. It can dynamically manage applications for virtualized data centers to optimize their operations and reduce their energy consumption. This software solution has been developed by Fabien Hermenier and Jean Marc Menau from the Ecole des Mines de Nantes.

DATACENTER : A GROWING ENERGY CONSUMER

On the last year, 1 to 2% of global electricity production has been consumed by data centers, which employ 30 to 60% of their consumption to cool their servers. Indeed, according to the operations or the density of information requested, the heat dissipation can range from simple to triple. The threat of overheating in these data centers, which impedes the proper hardware and operating system, is a constant concern of administrators.  The growing number of Internet users, access terminals, increased data availability and the emergence of new uses such as cloud computing are all reasons for manufacturers to ensure control of the energy footprint of their centers data, both to limit the environmental impact to maintain optimal competitiveness thereof. 

ENTROPY : ALLOCATE RESSOURCES & MINIMIZE COOLING

To solve this problem, Entropy optimizes the software organization’s data center to reduce power consumption and heat generation.  The purpose of the software Entropy is to reduce the energy footprint of a data center through a very fine manipulation of virtual machines. The first step is already taken: it is best to allocate resources, and already it would reduce by half the power consumption of servers. The software is currently being tested in this way at Orange, at Bull and the Directorate General of Public Finance. Many more original, the second step, currently, is to move server workloads based on the thermal map of the datacenter, so as to minimize cooling requirements.

Strategy

The Computer Science Department of Ecole des Mines de Nantes has been awarded the 1st prize of the digital green growth in the category of Higher Education and Research, for Entropy. The ceremony held December 4 at the premises of MEDEF in Paris.

 Ecole des Mines de Nantes will offer Entropy with a LGPL licence to major market players. The school is also eventually expecting to offer them additional services and consulting expertise around Entropy.

SOURCES