RAPL Formula

RAPL stands for Running Average Power Limit. It is a feature of recent Intel processors that provide the energy consumption of the processor.

The RAPL Formula is designed to mesure power consumption of domains (CPU or RAM) in real time.

The RAPL Formula takes HWPC Report with RAPL event for each domains. It then returns the mesured power in a PowerReport for each domain. This Formula does not perform any other computation as its goal is only to track global power consumption in a more readable way than raw RAPL.

Installation

You can use the following script to install RAPL Formula and HWPC Sensor.

DockerPypi

docker pull powerapi/powerapi

pip install powerapi

Usage

For running the RAPL Formula you need: a Source and a Destination, a Sensor that provides HWPCReports and a configuration.

Source and Destination

For running RAPL we are using MongoDB as Source and Destination as a docker container.

To start a MongoDB instance via the command line

docker run -d --name mongo_source_destination -p 27017:27017 mongo

Sensor

HWPC Sensor is used in order to get HWPCReports. Start by installing the HWPC Sensor (see here) and start it (see here).

Parameters

Besides the basic parameters, the following ones are specific to RAPL:

Parameter	Type	CLI shortcut	Default Value	Description
disable-cpu-formula	bool (flag)	-	true	Disable CPU formula
disable-dram-formula	bool (flag)	-	true	Disable DRAM formula
cpu-rapl-ref-event	string	-	RAPL_ENERGY_PKG	RAPL event used as reference for the CPU power models
dram-rapl-ref-event	string	-	RAPL_ENERGY_DRAM	RAPL event used as reference for the DRAM power models
sensor-report-sampling-interval	int	-	1000	The frequency with which measurements are made (in milliseconds)

Running the Formula with a Configuration File

Below an example is provided by using MongoDB as Source and Destination.

{
  "verbose": true,
  "stream": true,
  "input": {
    "puller": {
      "model": "HWPCReport",
      "type": "mongodb",
      "uri": "mongodb://127.0.0.1",
      "db": "test",
      "collection": "prep"
    }
  },
  "output": {
    "pusher_power": {
      "type": "mongodb",
      "model": "PowerReport",
      "type": "mongodb",
      "uri": "mongodb://127.0.0.1",
      "db": "test",
      "collection": "results"
    }
  },
  "disable-dram-formula": true,
  "sensor-report-sampling-interval": 500
}

Alternative Source or Destination

If you want to use another Source or Destination, please check the documentation here and modify the configuration file according to the Source and/or Destination that you want to use.

Once you have your configuration file, run RAPL using one of the following command lines, depending on the installation you use:

DockerPip

docker run -t \
--net=host \
-v $(pwd)/config_file.json:/config_file.json \
powerapi/powerapi --config-file /config_file.json \

python -m powerapi --config-file config_file.json

Running the Formula via CLI parameters

In order to run the Formula without a configuration file, run RAPL using one of the following command lines, depending on the installation you use:

DockerPip

docker run -t \
--net=host \
powerapi/powerapi --verbose \
--input mongodb --model HWPCReport --uri mongodb://127.0.0.1 --db test --collection prep \
--output mongodb --model PowerReport --uri mongodb://127.0.0.1 --db test --collection results \
--disable-dram-formula \
--sensor-report-sampling-interval 500

python -m powerapi --verbose \
--input mongodb --model HWPCReport --uri mongodb://127.0.0.1 --db test --collection prep \
--output mongodb --model PowerReport --uri mongodb://127.0.0.1 --db test --collection results \
--disable-dram-formula \
--sensor-report-sampling-interval 500

Estimations' Storage

Your PowerReports will be stored on MongoDB.

Using shortcuts for parameters' names

You use - instead of --.