Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Large: Systems and Verifiable Metrics for Sustainable Data Centers

Data centers already contribute significantly to the global carbon footprint. However, the rise in popularity of resource-intensive Big Data and Machine Learning workloads is poised to make data center operations unsustainable. This project designs a suite of Sustainability Aware Software SYstems (SASSY) to enable "sustainable-by-design" data centers. SASSY focuses on sustainability holistically, considering the lifecycle carbon footprint of computing equipment, cleanliness of energy source, and device reliability. To measure per-job end-to-end sustainability costs, a full-stack measurement framework is developed. To involve end-users in sustainability efforts, new programming models and tools are designed to enable users to specify their sustainability and performance objectives. The metrics and models together guide SASSY to make wise data-center-wide sustainable management choices.The adoption of SASSY solutions leads to sustainability savings that benefit the society at large. Further, the SASSY programming models and tools allow developers to build more sustainable applications, enabling "sustainable-by-design" software development. Data center operators and industry partners can directly benefit from SASSY's open-source software and models, which are made public through the project Website: https://www.pace.cs.stonybrook.edu/sassy.html. The next generation of practitioners and researchers are taught to consider sustainability as a first-class metric via educational and mentoring opportunities that the project generates.This project was in response to and partially funded by Design for Sustainability in Computing (NSF-22-060)This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.