Monitoring of shared server set power supply units

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9832088-B2
Application number	US-201414502758-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2014
Priority date	Sep 30, 2014
Publication date	Nov 28, 2017
Grant date	Nov 28, 2017

Abstract

Power monitoring in a server set that has a shared power supply system that includes multiple power supply unit sets that each provide power to the server set. A controller monitors power usage of the server set, and evaluates the monitored power usage against the power supply capability of each of the power supply unit sets. Based on the evaluation, the controller can detect when a particular power supply unit set is no longer capable of solely providing all of the power that the server set is consuming or anticipated to consume, and then reduce power accordingly so that the particular power supply unit set could provide such power.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A method, implemented at a computer system that includes one or more processors, for retaining redundancy in power supply unit sets of a shared power supply system, the method comprising:
identifying a plurality of power supply unit sets of a shared power supply system that each include a single power feed and a single output, including at least a first power supply unit set that is supplied by a first power feed and supplies a single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set, the first power supply unit set comprising a first plurality of power supply units giving the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set a first capacity, and a second power supply unit set that is supplied by a second power feed and supplies a single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set, the second power supply unit set comprising a second plurality of power supply units giving the single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set a second capacity, each of the first capacity associated with the first power supply unit set and the second capacity associated with the second power supply unit set being sufficient to solely provide all of the power that a server set consumes or is anticipated to consume;
detecting that a change in the first capacity has occurred with respect to the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set, including detecting a loss of functionality of at least one of the first plurality of power supply units, such that the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set now has a new third capacity that is lower than the second capacity of the single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set and which is no longer capable of solely providing all of the power that the server set consumes or is anticipated to consume;
based at least on detecting that the change in the first capacity has occurred with respect to the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set, identifying one or more actions to perform on the server set that would lower power consumption of the server set to within the new third capacity of the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set so that the new third capacity of the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set would be able to solely provide all of the power that the server set consumes or is anticipated to consume if all of the plurality of power supply unit sets except the first power supply unit set were to be lost, such that redundancy in the shared power supply system is retained; and
automatically performing the identified one or more actions to lower power consumption of the server set.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1 , the identified one or more actions comprising:
migrating a workload from the server set.

3. The method in accordance with claim 1 , the identified one or more actions comprising:
migrating all workloads from the server set.

4. The method in accordance with claim 1 , the identified one or more actions comprising:
reducing a fan speed.

5. The method in accordance with claim 1 , the identified one or more actions comprising:
reducing a processor utilization.

6. The method in accordance with claim 1 , the identified one or more actions comprising:
reducing power consumption of a hard drive.

7. A system comprising:
a server set comprising one or more servers;
a shared power supply system that comprises a plurality of power supply unit sets that each include a single power feed and a single output, including at least a first power supply unit set and a second power supply unit set, that are each configured to provide power to the server set and that are each configured to solely provide all of the power that the server set consumes or is anticipated to consume, the first power supply unit set being supplied by a first power feed and including a single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set that is configured to supply the server set, the first power supply unit set comprising a first plurality of power supply units giving the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set a first capacity, and the second power supply unit set being supplied by a second power feed and including a single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set that is configured to supply the server set, the second power supply unit set comprising a second plurality of power supply units giving the single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set a second capacity; and
a power supply controller that is configured to perform the following:
detect that a change in the first capacity has occurred with respect to the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set, including detecting a loss of functionality of a least one of the first plurality of power supply units, such that the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set now has a new third capacity that is lower than the second capacity of the single output corresponding to the second power supply unit set and which is no longer capable of solely providing all of the power that the server set consumes or is anticipated to consume;
based at least on detecting that the change in the first capacity has occurred with respect to the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set, identify one or more actions to perform on the server set that would lower power consumption of the server set to within the new third capacity of the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set so that the new third capacity of the single output corresponding to the first power supply unit set would be able to solely provide all of the power that the server set consumes or is anticipated to consume if all of the plurality of power supply unit sets except the first power supply unit set were to be lost, such that redundancy in the shared power supply system is retained; and
perform the identified one or more actions to lower power consumption of the server set.

8. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the server set being a server chassis.

9. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the plurality of power supply unit sets including only the first power supply unit set and the second power supply unit set.

10. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the server set comprising a plurality of servers.

11. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the identified one or more actions comprising migrating a workload from the server set.

12. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the identified one or more actions comprising migrating all workloads from the server set.

13. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the identified one or more actions comprising reducing a fan speed.

14. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the identified one or more actions comprising reducing a processor utilization.

15. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the identified one or more actions comprising reducing power consumption of a hard drive.

16. The system in accordance with claim 7 , the power supply controller also being configured to identify that at least one of the first plurality of power supply units is flagged for closer monitoring.

17. The system in accordance with claim 16 , wherein the at least one power supply unit is flagged based on serial number.

18. The method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying at least one of the first power plurality of supply units as being flagged for closer

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Myrah Michael
• Eason Matthew Jeremiah

Classifications

• H04L43/08 Primary

  Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters · CPC title

• G06F1/28

  Supervision thereof, e.g. detecting power-supply failure by out of limits supervision · CPC title

• G06F1/26 Primary

  Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof (for memories G11C) · CPC title

• G06F1/3206

  Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title