Challenge: Resolving Data Center Power Bill Disputes: The Energy-Performance Trade-Offs of Consolidation

In this paper we challenge the common evaluation practices used in Virtual Machine (VM) consolidation, such as simulation and small testbeds, which fail to capture the fundamental trade-off between energy consumption and performance. We identify a number of over-simplifying assumptions which are typically made about the energy consumption and performance characteristics of modern networked systems. In response, we describe how more accurate models for data-center systems can be designed and used in order to create an evaluation framework that allows the exploration of the energy-performance trade-off in VM consolidation strategies with enhanced fidelity.