BCID: An effective data center power mapping technology

The mapping of the power delivery network to the equipment in a data center is an essential step towards having intelligent and efficient control over data center power distribution. Visual identification of the power connectivity is error-prone and expensive while other methods require high-power signal injection and significant human labor or interruption in the power delivery, making them impractical. The use of power modulation in a server has been proposed but requires large power variations in order to do the mapping. In this paper we propose a new technique that reduces by over an order of magnitude the amount of signaling power necessary to less than 2.5W. Using this technique we show that a simple, USB device is able to generate that signal, allowing a non-intrusive method to identify the power connectivity for a system. The speed of detecting the connectivity reliably makes this a feasible solution for mapping entire data centers.