SIGUCCS 2013 ACM presentation. Energy overhead of the graphical user interface in server operating systems. Heather Brotherton, J. Eric Dietz, John McGrory, and Fredrick Mtenzi. 2013. In Proceedings of the 2013 ACM annual conference on Special interest group on university and college computing services (SIGUCCS '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 65-68. DOI=10.1145/2504776.2504781 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2504776.2504781

1. Energy
Overhead of
the GUI in
Server
Operating
Systems
Heather Brotherton

2. Introduction

This study will

Make a case for reducing use of the
graphical user interface

Avoid focus on a particular brand of
operating system

3. OPERATING SYSTEM

Nearly every server, controlling systems
resources

Allows us to take advantage of the Cascade
Effect

4. Cascade Effect

5. Potential Savings
Source: EXP Critical
Facilities Inc., Intel Corp.

6. Example

If a PCI card such as video card were
removed for a savings of 41watts from 500
servers in a data center, the cumulative
watts saved would be 58,220 watts per year.

At an average of ten cents per kilowatt-hour
this results in a savings of$51,035.65 per
year.

7. Experiment

Energy readings were collected for a
minimum of one hour using the Watts Up?
Meter.

8. Monitoring Tool

Watts up? Pro universal outlet version. This
meter is capable of measuring 100 to 250v
within a plus or minus 1.5 percent accuracy.

The meter is also capable of logging at onesecond intervals and provides a USB
interface and PC software

9. Linux Observations

Linux based server operating systems ran
the top command during the observations.

top -d 1 > /home/testOSName.txt

10. Windows Observations

Windows ran the Typeperf command line
tool during the observations configured to
provide much of the same information as
provided by top.

typeperf “MemoryAvailable bytes”
“processor(*)% processortime”
“Process(*)Thread Count” >
testOSName.csv

11. Hardware

Intel Atom D525 1.8GHz dual core processor

Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
3150

Gigabit LAN

SD card reader

5 USB connections

Fan-less external power supply

Intel Solid State Drive 80GB 320 Series

PNY 4GB PC3-10666 1.3GHz DDR3 SoDIMM

12. Server

Baseline watt consumption mean energy
consumed is 7.96 watts and the median is
8.70 watts.

After the addition of 4GB RAM to the server
during a one hour period is 15.36 watts and
the median is 15 watts.

After Solid State Drive (SSD) installation
was a mean of 17.42 watts and a median
consumption of 17.7 watts.

Baseline for the server of 17.42 to17.7 watts

13. Server Operating Systems

The software used for the testing were the
following x86 operating systems:


Ubuntu 11.10 (Linux)

Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter GUI
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
Core

14. Consumption by OS

15. GUI vs Non GUI
Time
Threads
Watts
Time
Threads
Watts
(Minutes)
(Mean)
(Mean)
(Minutes)
(Mean)
(Mean)
9:42
373
18.65
3:16
263
17.1
9:43
361
18.6
3:17
263
17
9:44
362
18.65
3:18
260
17
9:45
360
18.65
3:19
256
17.05
9:46
360
18.7
3:20
259
17.05
9:47
368
18.7
3:21
255
17.15
9:48
364
18.6
3:22
255
17.25
9:49
363
18.7
3:23
252
17.1
9:50
362
18.65
3:24
250
17.2
9:51
364
18.7
3:25
254
17.2
9:52
376
18.65
3:26
250
17.25

16. Table explained

The mean number of threads:


GUI 365
Non-GUI 256

Difference approximately 109 threads

Indicates that a reduction of the ~100-thread
GUI overhead can save roughly one watt at
the server level.

17. FINDINGS

Operating systems that do not run a
graphical user interface (GUI) tested use
roughly 17.5 to 17.6 watts.

Graphical user interface (GUI) based
operating systems tested consumed 18.1 to
18.9 watts roughly.

Not using a GUI would save .6 to 1.3 watts
per server.

18. Conclusion

Savings of roughly 1 watt per server

Doesn’t seem like a big deal?

Maybe, but now you don’t need that video
card…

19. Math

(1watt GUI + 41 watt video card) 2.84
Cascade Effect = 119.28 watts

Hours in a year 8765.81

wattage x hours used ÷ 1000 x price
per kWh = cost of electricity

(119.28 x 8765.81 ÷ 1000) x .1 =
104.55858168

For 500 servers $52,279.29