[AusNOG] Power audit

[jason andrade]

On Thu, 6 Jun 2013, Damien Gardner Jnr wrote:

> I guess it depends on your environment..
>
> Sure, CPU-idle to CPU-maxxed, you'll see some difference if you have big 
> power-hungry CPU's (30-40W difference per CPU on a 90W CPU?).  It's enough 
> that back in the isa.net.au days we stopped running seti at home overnight, as 
> it added up across 90 servers!

To give you some idea from a different perspective.

2RU server which has 64 cores (4 physical cpus) and 256G of ram (and 12T of disk).

When you run 8 of them in a rack with a 100% cpu loading you are pulling a bit under
8kW of power.  When you run 8 of them with no load, around 3kW of power . When you
turn them all off and you just run the blinking LEDs, you are still using ~100W of
power.

Those are observed off smart PDUs so some level of inaccuracy as far as they go.

Noting that 8 of those servers only consumes 16RU of rack space...

Also noting Dell will sell you a 2RU server now which can fit 128 cores and 1T of ram
(e.g. Dell C6145) and other vendors have similar products..  if you are heading down
building cloud stuff using vendor products (rather than google/facebook etc).

regards,

-jason