TheGreenGrid.org, provider of the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric, one of the few datacenter metrics given wide adoption, has released information about their two latest datacenter metrics, Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE). With PUE these two new metrics will give datacenter operators a more effective set of tools for measuring the overall effectiveness and efficiency of their operations.
The Green Grid considers these new metrics to be focused on the sustainability of your datacenters; CUE is focused on allowing datacenter operators to determine their greenhouse gas emissions, while WUE will give operators a handle on the water usage within their datacenters. Information on calculating WUE is not yet available; distribution is planned for early 2011, but the white paper defining the usage model and calculation method for CUE is available now from the Green Grid web site.
This is a first generation metric and the Green grid acknowledges that it is not complete at this point in time. Accurate utilization of CUE will also require detailed knowledge of how the power your operation uses is generated, information which might not be easily determined when power is derived from more than a single source or methodology.
These new metrics are additional tools that can be used to build towards the future of your datacenter; still in their infancy, datacenter metrics have yet to have the gravitas that years of use will provide, but they are still a reasonable starting point for evaluating the overall efficiency of your operation.
