Server power management with automatically-expiring server power allocations

A computer system, comprising:

• a group of servers, each server including a local controller having control logic for controlling power to the server;
• a group power management entity in communication with the servers, the group power management entity including control logic for allocating power to the group within a group power budget, including control logic for selectively granting a server power allocation to each server with a specified magnitude and duration, and for selectively renewing the granted server power allocations;
• and
• wherein the local controller of each server includes control logic for requesting the server power allocation to that server, limiting the power consumption of that server to any server power allocation granted to that server, and for automatically reducing the power consumption of that server if the local controller has not received a renewed server power allocation from the group power management entity upon expiration of the specified duration.

A computer program product including computer usable program code embodied on a computer usable storage medium, the computer program product comprising:

• computer usable program code executable by a group power management entity for limiting the total power allocated by the group power management entity to a group of servers to within a group power budget;
• computer usable program code executable by each server for requesting a server power allocation for that server from the group power management entity;
• computer usable program code executable by the group power management entity for granting each requested server power allocation that is within the group power budget for a specified magnitude and duration;
• computer usable program code executable by the group power management entity for selectively renewing the granted server power allocations;
• and
• computer usable program code executable by each server for automatically reducing power to that server if that server has not received a renewed server power allocation from the group power management entity by the expiration of the specified duration.