From personal experience I can confirm that datacenters are in the market for a label to show how "green"/"efficient" etc. they are. As you rightfully state, the labels are mostly for marketing purposes, the associated actions do bring actual improvements.
In my opinion, Uptime and LEED focus mostely on building parameters, the CoC does have a limited IT scope. We wanted a broader approach, more in line with the GreenGrid usefull work studies and therefor use the OpenDCME model ( http://www.OpenDCME.org). This model is in line with but extends the CoC to include multiple facilities KPI's and a rating on normalized IT utilization, IT and DC management and 4 key ITIL processes that support and drive efficiency.
The OpenDCME model does not provide certification but instead brings insight and a way to evaluate, rate and track improvements. Improvements in DC facilities, IT energy efficiency, management and organizational aspects (16 KPI's in total). In the continuos journey of efficiency improvements, the above mentioned certifications can best be seen as (usefull) waypoints.
regards, Dirk Harryvan
And how did you rate it?
Many businesses looking at building new datacenters announce that they are planning on achieving certification for their new datacenter by an external authority that will evaluate their datacenter and grant a specific status or award to the facility. When the new datacenter gets such a status or award, the company will send out press releases, tell stockholders, and use it in their promotional material, if applicable. But the standard for the current crop of rating entities are consistent only across their own ratings, and there are more groups doing this than you might realize. Here’s the current crop of high-end standards and awards applied to datacenters.
The Uptime Institute Tier Standard
Possibly the grand-daddy of generally accepted datacenter standards, the Tier ratings defined the capabilities of the datacenter. In response to the demand for an evaluative standard for datacenter operations, in July 2010 the Uptime Institute announced their Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability. Focused on minimizing risk and maximizing uptime, this standard addresses such things as operations, management, site location, and building characteristics. Qualifying the levels with which existing Tier rated datacenters met these new standards results in each facility being capable of getting a Bronze, Silver, or Gold classification, with their Tier rating, which means that a fully Uptime Institute rated facility will be described as something like a Tier III Silver.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
This standard, run by the US Green Building Council, you might be surprised to learn, is not a datacenter standard per se, despite all the press over the last year on datacenters achieving high LEED awards. The USGBC defines the standard as “a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings.” And while a datacenter needs to work hard to achieve LEED awards, the basic metric is not designed to rate a fully optimized datacenter.
Certified Energy Efficient Datacenter Award (CEEDA)
Building on top of the European Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency promulgated in 2008, CEEDA offers a Bronze, Silver, or Gold award to datacenters that have been evaluated by a third-party auditor and meet their standard’s in six areas: Monitoring, Utilization, IT Equipment and Services, Cooling, Power, and Building. The highest level award requires a demonstrable PUE off below 1.5 for the previous 12- month period.
