Estimating CO$_2$ emissions of distributed applications and platforms with SimGrid/Batsim

2025-08-19

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of assessing the environmental impact of datacenter task and resource management policies. We propose a simulation-based methodology for quantifying carbon footprint, extending the Batsim simulator to enable fine-grained, dynamic CO₂ emission estimation within the SimGrid framework. Our approach integrates real-time platform power consumption models with time-series regional grid carbon intensity data, computing emissions per task and per node during scheduling simulations. The method is seamlessly embedded into existing simulation workflows, enabling reproducible and scalable evaluation of the carbon efficiency of distributed application scheduling strategies. Our primary contribution is the development of the first open-source, high-fidelity, carbon-aware simulation plugin tightly coupled with scheduling logic—providing a standardized, extensible assessment tool for green computing research.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search
• Multiagent Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Emergent Behavior

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Sustainability and carbon-aware systems for Web, mobile, and WoT
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

This work presents a carbon footprint plugin designed to extend the capabilities of the Batsim simulator by allowing the calculation of CO$_2$ emissions during simulation runs. The goal is to comprehensively assess the environmental impact associated with task and resource management strategies in data centers. The plugin is developed within SimGrid -- the underlying simulation framework of Batsim -- and computes carbon emissions based on the simulated platform's energy consumption and carbon intensity factor of the simulated machines. Once implemented, it is integrated into Batsim, ensuring compatibility with existing simulation workflows and enabling researchers to assess the carbon efficiency of their scheduling strategies.

Problem

• Estimating CO2 emissions of distributed applications and platforms
• Assessing environmental impact of data center management strategies
• Calculating carbon emissions from simulated energy consumption

Innovation

• Carbon footprint plugin for Batsim simulator
• Computes emissions from energy and carbon intensity
• Integrates with existing simulation workflows seamlessly