Important Data Center Metrics You Should Know

               We all know that data center and both mechanical and electronic equipment within the facility are becoming energy efficient. There are a variety of standards, certificates and metrics that have emerged to measure the efficiency of the facility. Metrics and Standards are very important to perform accurate measurement of data center and its IT equipment. Standards and Certification programs can maintain the integrity of IT companies’ claims for energy efficiency. Following are some of the certifications, standards and metrics that companies are using to show the energy efficiency of their facility and equipment.

Carbon Intensity per Unit Data:

               Carbon Intensity is used to refer the ratio of carbon-di-oxide to energy. It is a measurement of the amount of carbon emissions per unit of fuel consumed. Akamai is one of the leading content delivery network has been reporting carbon emission related to cloud computing. Carbon emission related to cloud computing based services in the metrics of “CO2/ megabytes of data transferred”. This metric enables Akamai to compare cloud computing usage across industry and also in process of making this metric to available on a monthly basis to its clients. Greenpeace has praised Akamai for its transparent reporting of this metrics and has awarded highest grade for its transparency above all giant internet players like Apple, Google, Facebook and, IBM.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE):

                This is the leading metrics which shows how efficiently the data center is operating. PUE is the ratio of how much energy is consumed in running data center’s equipment to the energy consumed to run the overall data center. This metric was created by “The Green Grid”. If a data center consumes lot of energy for cooling and power conversion, the facility isn’t very efficient and its PUE rating will be very near to 2. If very little energy is consumed in power conversion and cooling then data center will have a PUE closer to one.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED):

                This is a certificate awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED council evaluates green credentials of the building and consider several factors like materials, water used, indoor environmental quality and, location along with the efficiency of the plant to award any one of the five certificates certified by U.S. Green Building Council.

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers (ASHARE):

                This society is focused on building systems, indoor air quality, and sustainability, refrigeration and energy efficiency. ASHARE also publishes a series of standards and guidelines relating to HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning) issues and

systems.

Energy Star:

                Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s energy star certification is one of the widely used certification program for computers and gadgets. This certification can also be used for data centers and building that runs many number of data centers.

PAR4:

                This metric measures server powers in different methods  including peak power, transaction per watt, idle power and total utilization of power.PAR4 metric is developed my startup power Assure and enables servers of different generations

to one another in terms of energy consumption and efficiency. PAR4 is gaining huge response from Internet giants like Cisco, Intel and, Dell and have been working to incorporate this metric into their systems.

 

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