Category: Software Release

Introducing TCO2: Total CO2 Cost of Ownership

TCO2: Total CO2 Cost of Ownership is a tool for analyzing the carbon footprint of database server replacements. It was developed by the Data Engineering Systems group at the Hasso Platner Institute, including Tilmann Rabl (PI) and Ilin Tolovski (doctoral researcher) from FONDA subproject B6.  Ilin, Tilmann and Marcel Weisgut presented TCO2 at the 51st Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB) on September 3rd. The tool provides a break-even analysis of server replacement, taking into consideration, among other factors, the embodied carbon of new hardware, the carbon intensity of a nation’s power supply, and the type of workload being run. Explore these relationships for yourself here!

Abstract: 

Data centers produce a significant and increasing amount of CO2 emissions. In the past, these have been predominantly due to energy generation for powering data centers. With the transition to energy sources with lower carbon production, the embodied carbon (i.e., CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions during production, transport, and end-of-life) plays an increasing role when planning server lifecycles. While replacing an old server with newer hardware will typically reduce the power consumption of individual tasks, due to better efficiency of modern CPUs, offsetting the embodied carbon of new hardware can take months to tens of years, depending on the grid carbon intensity.

Read more here!

Data Aware Scheduling Method Now Available for Nextflow

With the latest release of the nf-cws Nextflow-Plugin, Fabian Lehmann and Friedrich Tschirpke introduce the WOW scheduling method as a production-ready feature. This release marks the transition of the WOW approach from a research prototype to a usable software component, fully integrated with the official Nextflow versions (v24.04.0 up to v25.02.3-edge).

Key Features:

  • WOW Scheduling for Nextflow: The Workflow-Aware data movement and task scheduling (WOW) method is now available as part of nf-cws. This enables dynamic coordination of data transfers and task execution, reducing network congestion and workflow runtime.
  • Seamless Integration: The nf-cws plugin can be used directly with Nextflow’s Kubernetes executor, requiring no experimental patches or custom setups.
  • Production Use: The improvements demonstrated in the original publication can now be leveraged by all Nextflow users in real-world scenarios.

-Fabian Lehmann