Adaptive computing and server virtualization in German data centers - Potentials for increasing energy efficiency today and in 2020

Adaptive computing solutions can significantly contribute to saving energy and other resources in data centers. Examples of such solutions include load and power management of servers, adapting air conditioning to dynamic loads, and dynamic distribution of computing loads to various data centers. Several solutions of this kind were developed and their potentials for saving energy and other resources were calculated in the project Adaptive Computing for Green Data Centers (AC4DC). Server virtualization is the fundamental prerequisite for using adaptive computing technologies. Therefore, this contribution focuses first on the extent to which server virtualization is used in data centers and calculates both the current figure and the development through 2020. The calculations are based esp. on market research surveys, surveys of data centers, and a Delphi survey, which generated data for calculating possible energy savings through the use of adaptive computing technologies.