Standards organizations coordinate on data center energy efficiency metrics
For those of you who despair of all the differing yet similar ideas about what does or does not constitute best practices around energy efficiency, here's some good news: The Green Grid is teaming up with several other major agreements to create consistency around metrics and reporting considerations. And its work to establish Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) as part of the language of data center efficiency apparently has paid off.
The move coordinates work being done by the following organizations:
- The U.S. Department of Energy’s Save Now and Federal Energy Management programs
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program
- The European Union Code of Conduct
- The Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) Green IT Initiative
- And efforts by Japan’s Green IT Promotion Council (GIPC)
Here's some perspective from Tom Brey, who is an IBM representative for The Green Grid and the secretary for the consortium:
"The ultimate goal is to create a set of globally accepted metrics for data center energy efficiency. One of the first, and perhaps most important factors to successfully achieving this aim is establishing a unity of communication. The Green Grid is working with organizations around the world to develop a clear and well-defined language for the way we communicate about energy efficiency metrics, which will give us a common measuring stick for all data centers regardless of their location. With that type of consistency, we can start driving behavioral changes in the industry."
Under the agreement, the organizations listed above plan to start using PUE as the preferred way to express energy efficiency metrics. You can also expect the Green Grid to work more closely with the EPA Energy Star program office: The Green Grid will become a technical advisor to the program to help it develop standards for servers, storage devices, uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) and complete data center infrastructures.