Energy-Efficient Container Scheduling Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning in Data Centers

As data centers become essential large-scale infrastructures for data processing and intelligent computing, the efficiency of their internal scheduling systems is critical for both service quality and energy consumption. The performance of these scheduling systems significantly impacts the quality of computing services and overall energy usage. However, the rapid increase in task volume, coupled with the diversity of computing resources, poses substantial challenges to traditional scheduling approaches. Conventional container scheduling approaches typically focus on either minimizing task execution time or reducing energy consumption independently, often neglecting the importance of balancing these two objectives simultaneously. In this study, a container scheduling algorithm based on the Soft Actor–Critic framework, called SAC-CS, is proposed. This algorithm aims to enhance container execution efficiency while concurrently reducing energy consumption in data centers. It employs a maximum entropy reinforcement learning approach, enabling a flexible trade-off between energy use and task completion times. Experimental evaluations on both synthetic workloads and Alibaba cluster datasets demonstrate that the SAC-CS algorithm effectively achieves joint optimization of efficiency and energy consumption, outperforming heuristic methods and alternative reinforcement learning techniques.