We all know data centers draw a lot of power. But what standard or standards should be used in measuring its efficiency? Well, a group of leaders from across the industry got together in January to agree on data center energy efficiency measurements, metrics and reporting conventions.
Organizations represented were the 7×24 Exchange, ASHRAE, The Green Grid, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, U.S. Department of Energy’s SaveEnergyNow and Federal Energy Management Programs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Program, U.S. Green Building Council, and Uptime Institute.
The following guiding principles were agreed to:
- Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) using source energy consumption is the preferred energy efficiency metric for data centers. PUE is a measurement of the total energy of the data center divided by the IT energy consumption.
- When calculating PUE, IT energy consumption should, at a minimum, be measured at the output of the uninterruptible power supply (UPS). However, the industry should progressively improve measurement capabilities over time so that measurement of IT energy consumption directly at the IT load (i.e., servers) becomes the common practice.
- For a dedicated data center, the total energy in the PUE equation will include all energy sources at the point of utility handoff to the data center owner or operator. For a data center in a mixed-use building, the total energy will be all energy required to operate the data center, similar to a dedicated data center, and should include IT energy, cooling, lighting, and support infrastructure for the data center operations.
This guidance is meant to help the industry have a common understanding of energy efficiency metrics that can generate dialogue to improve data center efficiencies and reduce energy consumption.
The organizations will continue to work as a task force to further refine these metrics and to identify a roadmap for the future. The group also aspires to address IT productivity and carbon accounting in the future.
We’ve all heard the concern about massive electrical consumption in data centers, and new statistics confirm that half or less of that energy actually goes to the IT loads. “The other half goes to the network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) equipment including power equipment, cooling equipment, and lighting,” according to Neil Rasmussen, founder and CTO of American Power Conversion, Inc., a global leader in network infrastructure.
“Electrical power usage is not a typical design criterion for data centers, nor is it effectively managed as an expense,” he writes. “This is true despite the fact that the electrical power costs over the life of a data center may exceed the costs of the electrical power system including the UPS, and also may exceed the cost of the IT equipment.”
For efficient data centers, Rasmussen says: “The electrical power consumption is typically shared evenly between the IT loads and NCPI devices. Any rational approach to reduction in electrical usage must treat the combined IT / NCPI design as a system in order to maximize the benefit.”
For all IT folks who are concerned with measuring energy efficiency in the data center — as we are at EasyStreet — it looks like the Green Grid Consortium is refining its data center efficiency metric known as PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness). The group will also make a free PUE Calculator and a Power Efficiency Estimator available on their web site by March 2010.
Here’s a link to the press release about the new tools and other new Green Grid initiatives.
An article on SearchDataCenter.com quotes Green Grid vice chair, Jon Haas, who is director of eco-technologies at Intel Corp. Haas says there can never be too many tools when it comes to managing data center efficiency. “The power efficiency estimator is really to look at power topologies and allows you to do comparisons across different topologies and architectures so you make the right decisions.”
Finally, this PCWorld article provides more information about the new Green Grid tools, including an email address for providing feedback.
Outsourcing of data centers to third parties will see double-digit growth in Europe this year, according to Gartner VP of Research Scott Morrison.
Europe’s drive to outsource is being driven by the age of many company data centers, as well as corporate desire to restructure IT infrastructures and eliminate “data-center sprawl,” he explains in a recent interview with Accela Communications’ IT Briefing Center. Focus of many companies’ outsourcing includes their mission-critical IT services and business-critical applications.
“Many IT leaders make the decision that it’s beyond the scope of the internal IT organization to provide the required level of guarantee back to the business,” he said. “They’re thus drawn to the service-provider model on the basis of the better overall service levels being offered.”
Companies looking to outsource their data centers remain focused on two key metrics: cost reduction and performance improvement, he says.
“While we’ve seen many parts of the network and IT services market start to contract during this economic downturn, demand for third-party data centers is actually growing faster as a result,” Morrison adds. “And Gartner expects to see double-digit rises in demand in Europe this year, continuing the trend we’ve seen in the past three to four years.”
EasyStreet is proud to announce announced the successful completion of our SAS 70 Type II audit.
Why is this important to EasyStreet customers?
Today, companies need to be assured that their service providers have implemented controls over security, information technology and related business processes. This SAS 70 audit means that an expert CPA firm has evaluated and tested the internal controls governing EasyStreet’s colocation facilities — and has verified that they have operated effectively over time.
Obviously, this is an important accomplishment for EasyStreet, but it also has benefits for companies who choose to co-locate at our data center. By extension, our SAS 70 audit lets you:
- Address compliance regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, FDA 21 CFR Part 11 or the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
- Save the cost of doing your own audits. For example, sharing a copy of the SAS 70 report from EasyStreet with your PCI or CISP provider can often reduce your costs for those audits.
- Ensure your SaaS offering has a strong system of internal controls for safeguarding sensitive data.
- Create a strategic advantage by using a SAS 70 audited provider. (Having an audited data center may be required for you to win clients in certain regulated industries.)
- Trust in the critical components of your IT infrastructure, such as security, redundancy and reliability.
Our President and CEO, Rich Bader, said, “This is a critical milestone in EasyStreet’s evolution. I knew our processes, people and internal controls were sound, and we now have third-party verification to further instill confidence in our services. I’m proud — but not surprised — that we were able to pass on our first audit.”
EasyStreet’s SAS 70 audit was conducted by Linford & Company LLP of Denver, Colorado.
For more information, read EasyStreet’s SAS 70 FAQ page here.
Informative articles about why SAS 70 is important can be found at TechNewsWorld and Online Tech Blog.
