OpenDC-STEAM: Realistic Modeling and Systematic Exploration of Composable Techniques for Sustainable Datacenters

TL;DR

OpenDC-STEAM is an open-source simulator that enables comprehensive analysis of sustainability techniques in datacenters, revealing complex trade-offs and interactions to guide more effective decarbonization strategies.

Contribution

We introduce OpenDC-STEAM, a customizable datacenter simulator that systematically evaluates combined sustainability techniques and their impact on emissions and performance.

Findings

Combining strategies can significantly reduce emissions.

Datacenter dynamics influence technique effectiveness.

Trade-offs exist between emissions, costs, and performance.

Abstract

The need to reduce datacenter carbon footprint is urgent. While many sustainability techniques have been proposed, they are often evaluated in isolation, using limited setups or analytical models that overlook real-world dynamics and interactions between methods. This makes it challenging for researchers and operators to understand the effectiveness and trade-offs of combining such techniques. We design OpenDC-STEAM, an open-source customizable datacenter simulator, to investigate the individual and combined impact of sustainability techniques on datacenter operational and embodied carbon emissions, and their trade-off with performance. Using STEAM, we systematically explore three representative techniques - horizontal scaling, leveraging batteries, and temporal shifting - with diverse representative workloads, datacenter configurations, and carbon-intensity traces. Our analysis highlights that datacenter dynamics can influence their effectiveness and that combining strategies can significantly lower emissions, but introduces complex cost-emissions-performance trade-offs that STEAM can help navigate. STEAM supports the integration of new models and techniques, making it a foundation framework for holistic, quantitative, and reproducible research in sustainable computing. Following open-science principles, STEAM is available as FOSS: https://github.com/atlarge-research/OpenDC-STEAM.