Green Computing Task Force

Main objective

The Green Computing Task Force has been established by the EGI-ACE project in 2021 to coordinate the Green Computing activities of the compute centres that participate in EGI-ACE, as well those that participate in the broader EGI federation. The Task Force aims at mapping the landscape of green computing activities in EGI, capturing good practices for green computing from the federation members, developing best practice guides for the EGI compute and data centres and monitoring the uptake and the environmental impact of those during 2022 and 2023.

Responsibilities

To support this goal, the TF will carry out the following activities

• Map the landscape of green computing activities within the EGI Federation, with specific focus on participants of the EOSC Compute Platform.
• Identify best practices among partners including measures for reducing energy consumption as well as achieving optimal metrics.
• Create a knowledge catalogue including best practices and training material oriented to serve as basic guidelines to improve energy usage and efficiency at data centres.
• Measure the progress and improvements achieved by EGI-ACE partners during the project.
• Liaise between complementary GC activities in other projects.

GC TF Composition

Respondents (EGI-ACE partners) to the Green Computing survey (launched in M7 of EGI-ACE) were sent invitation to join the Task Force. There is no limit on the number of members of the Task Force and more are expected to join by the end of the project.

Duration and outcome

The TF will be active for the duration of EGI-ACE and its activities will contribute to the general efforts to transition to a low-carbon, competitive economy through Green Computing (GC) and ICT Sustainability by maximising the positive environmental benefits and minimising negative impact. Its mandate can be extended beyond EGI-ACE to continue its activities under other projects.

Progress

• March 2021: EGI-ACE T7.2 members decided to run a survey on Green Computing across EGI-ACE partners 
• April - May 2021: Collecting ideas, material for Green Computing survey;
• June 2021: survey finalised; EC survey tool chosen to be used
• July 2021: Green Computing survey circulated to EGI-ACE partners
• September 2021 - 16 respondent sites to the GC survey
• November 2021 - survey results analysed, preparation for the TF kick-off meeting
• 16 December 2021 - GC TF kick-off meeting - https://indico.egi.eu/event/5771/
• 10 February 2021 - GC TF regular meeting - https://indico.egi.eu/event/5809/ (every 8 weeks)
• 30 March 2022 - Webinar: "How Green Is My Infrastructure?" - https://indico.egi.eu/event/5875/
• September 2022 - Green Computing survey 2nd run launched
• September 2022 - Green Computing survey on software efficiency
• 21 September 2022 - Workshop on Green Computing at EGI Conference 2022 - https://indico.egi.eu/event/5882/sessions/4852/
• October 2022 - 14 respondent sites to the GC survey 2nd run, 3 respondents on software efficiency
• November 2022 - January 2023 - work on "D7.4 Green Computing progress and improvements within EGI-ACE" deliverable - https://zenodo.org/record/7670205
• 21 June 2023 - Session on Green Computing at EGI Conference 2023 - https://whova.com/web/M8zkrnLo5DUwlnug54VINPkHTdssyl49PHa20jCW2Qg%3D/Agenda/
• July 2023 - New project (GreenDIGIT) will start in HORIZON-INFRA-2023-TECH-01 in March 2024 building on the outcomes of the EGI-ACE GC TF achievements during 2021 - 2023

List of actions

• all actions due by next meeting unless otherwise stated
• regular TF meetings every 8 weeks (next on 13 Feb 2022) (co-chairs)
• 2 x webinar - “What is green?” and “What we’ve done so you can do it too”
  • 30 March 2022 (“What we’ve done so you can do it too”) and 2022 Q2 (CC/T7.2)
  • ask participants to survey to present more details about what/how they did it in GC area (CC)
• invite more partners to the TF (CC/all)
• 2nd survey - 2022 Q3-Q4 (T7.2)
• survey on software efficiency - 2022 Q3-Q4 (T7.2)
• Dissemination on procurement clauses, green decomm. services, GC awareness raising training prog, GC policies, definitions and glossary (from partners, from third parties)
  • investigate the possibility of public pages (egi.eu) for signposting (CC)
• invite GC specialist to give talk (EGI Conference?)
  • ask TF members for suggested names (all)
  • Catherine Jones to present at EGI2022
• investigate possibility to add some form of calculator/metric to EOSC service catalog (CC)
• liaise with other projects (C-SCALE, EuroHPC) about green clauses in their tender processes (MM)
• core team (Paul, Catalin, Jerome) to prepare deliverable D7.4 with help expected from TF members
  • finalised in Feb'2023
• propose session on GC at EGI 2023 in June (Poznan)
  • accepted
  • Shaun de Witt and Paul Stokes to present on outcomes of TF 
  • Jerome and Hakan - sites experience

Documents and resources

• Collection of resources (aka GC signposting)
• Terms of Reference