Konferencja I3 – internet – infrastruktury - innowacje
SMOA Devices
Power usage monitoring and control infrastructure
Bartek Bosak, Krzysztof Kurowski, Bogdan Ludwiczak,
Ariel Oleksiak, Michał Witkowski
Motivation – Green Computing
SMOA Devices was created as a response to the following
challenges:
•Increased interest in performance-per-watt metrics
•Rising awareness of computing's impact on environment
•Rising prices of electrical power
•Realisation of the fact that idling machine = wasted power
•Lack of means to measure the power consumption of
computations
•Lack of an on-demand power-cycling infrastructure
Problems
The following problems arise when thinking about net power
management:
•Functionality spread among different points and levels:
– Graceful shutdown/suspend – machine's OS
– Wake up from shutdown/suspend – another machine via
network
– Measuring power consumption – dedicated hardware
solution monitored by another machine
•Network administrators frown upon the need to open
additional ports on machines
•Providing an integrated view of the power states
What is SMOA Devices?
SMOA Devices is a distributed system for managing and
monitoring power usage of networked computers.
Main characteristics:
• Management of machine power state
• Usage of XMPP for communication
• Distributed machine wakeup solution using Wake-on-LAN
or IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface)
• Support for Linux and Windows platforms
• Hooks for power measurement hardware
• Easily extensible
• Open source and available today for testing!
Why XMPP?
The Extensible Message and Presence Protocol (XMPP) was
chosen as a main communication protocol in SMOA Devices
because of the following properties:
• Client-server connection-based – does not require open
ports and additional firewall rules on the machines
• Provides information about presence – ideal for detecting
the availability of a machine
• Easy and secure - authentication of JIDs is already handled
by the XMPP server using SASL, all traffic can be encrypted
using SSL or TLS
•XML-based – ideal for transporting other XML-based
protocols
SMOA Devices Architecture
SMOA Devices Nodes
On each node there is an efficient software component
deployed (written in Python). Each node in the system can
play a role of:
•Device Node – Handles OS callbacks (like shutdown),
gathers powersaving and work-load information. Windows
service and Linux/Mac OS X daemon versions are available.
•Waker Node – Dispatches Wake-on-LAN calls (or needs to be
present in each network segment) or uses IPMI management
infrastructure to wake up sleeping Device Nodes.
•Meter Node – Interacts with hardware solutions like
intelligent power strips to provide information about power
consumption and control power at outlet level.
SMOA Devices Architecture
SMOA Devices Service
The SMOA Device Service plays a set of crucial roles in the
system:
•Coupling information from Nodes, Wakers and Meters
•Pairing Wakers with Nodes for complete power-cycling
capabilities
•Providing an easy-to-use REST API for gathered data
•Authorization of users
•Providing statistics for the system
SMOA Devices Pidgin Plugin
A Pidgin IM plugin was developped as an
example client for power management
and administration. Thus, users can
interact with networked computers and
control their status in the intuitive way
(computers are listed as IM buddies).
The current release supports:
•Tracing machine states like normal IM
buddies
•Automatic addition of entries for all
machines managed by the Service
•Managing power states of machines via
the right-click menu
Distributed Wake-on-LAN
Though IPMI is the prefered solution for large-scale systems,
it's not always available. Wake-on-LAN was chosen as an
alternative because it's the most widespread remote wake
up solution available.
Unfortunately WoL is limited to a local network, as it relies
on network broadcasts to carry the magic packet.
Thus, a distributed solution was adopted:
•Wakers inform the Service of Nodes they can wake up
•The Service chooses which Waker should be used to Wake
up the Node
Distributed Wake-on-LAN
Current state
SMOA Devices is under heavy development, but alpha release is available
on request (open source license).
•Service
– Aggregating information from Wakers and Nodes
– Simple authorization
– REST-like API
•Device Nodes
– Power state management: shutdown, suspend, hibernate on
Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
– CPU load information
•Waker Nodes
– Distributed Wake-on-LAN
The existing infrastructure was tested in both desktop/notebook and
server environments.
Please contact us if you want to test our solution in your environment!
Current state
SMOA Devices is under heavy development, but alpha release is available
on request (open source license).
•Service
– Aggregating information from Wakers and Nodes
– Simple authorization
– REST-like API
•Device Nodes
– Power state management: shutdown, suspend, hibernate on
Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
– CPU load information
•Waker Nodes
– Distributed Wake-on-LAN
The existing infrastructure was tested in both desktop/notebook and
server environments.
Future work
The following features are planned for the near future:
• Meter Nodes – controlling power outlets and monitoring power usage
using intelligent power strips or other embedded devices
• IPMI wake up mechanism for Waker Nodes
• Statistics module for the Service, providing historical data for analysis.
• Further development of the Pidgin plugin
Example usage scenarios
SMOA Devices can be used in many scenarios:
•Server environment
– Administration tool for power consumption monitoring and
power-cycling
– Power management infrastructure for use by other
applications, for example job schedulres
•Company computers
– Means of monitoring the power usage and managing unused
desktop machines.
•Domestic power usage
– Monitoring and managementof home appliances' power
consumption
– Fine grained power consumption information for power
companies