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Department of Computer Science

Energy Efficiency in Main-Memory Databases

Title

Energy Efficiency in Main-Memory Databases

Author

Stefan Noll

Published

Proc. Datenbanksysteme für Business, Technologie und Web (BTW), Studierendenprogramm, Stuttgart, Germany, March 2017

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paper (PDF)

Abstract

As the operating costs of today's data centres continue to increase and processor manufacturers are forced to meet thermal design power constraints, the energy efficiency of a main-memory database management system becomes more and more important. In this paper, we experimentally study the impact of reducing the clock frequency of the processor on the energy efficiency of common database algorithms such as scans, simple aggregations, simple hash joins and state-of- the-art join algorithms. We stress the fundamental trade-off between peak performance and energy efficiency, as opposed to the established race-to-idle strategy. Ultimately, we learn that database workloads behave considerably different than other workload types and that reducing the computing power e.g. by limiting the clock frequency can significantly improve energy efficiency.

Notes

This paper received the Best Student Paper Award.

Project

Energy Awareness in Database Algorithms and Systems (SFB 876, A2)