Product Authors
Editors:
Rona Newmark, Dell
Kathrin Winkler, EMC Corporation
Contributors:
John Calhoon, Microsoft
Charles Carroll, Individual Member
Dan Comperchio, Wildan Energy Solutions
Pierre Delforge, Individual Member
Jay Dietrich, IBM
Michael Dunbar, Dell
James Espy, Dell
Daniel Gaffney, The Bank of New York Mellon
Donald Goddard, NetApp
Magnus Herrlin, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Phil Isaak, Individual Member
J Carlos Pratt, IBM
Leonid Rabinovich, Cisco Systems
Dale Sartor, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Mark Seymour, Future Facilities
Roger Tipley, Schneider Electric
Todd Traver, IBM
Gary Verdun, Dell
Jay Vincent, Intel
Henry Wong, Intel
This white paper describes the outcome of an initiative undertaken by The Green Grid in early 2015 to define a metric or set of metrics that can quantify the maximum volume of information and communications technology (ICT) services that can be delivered by a data center for a given investment (“ICT capacity”) and provide an indicator of the share of that capacity that is actually utilized (“ICT utilization”).
Utilization can serve as a useful proxy for the energy efficiency with which the ICT services are being delivered because ICT equipment is generally more energy efficient at higher utilization. A doubling of utilization as measured by workload delivered or data stored can be achieved with an energy consumption increase of 4 to 5% as demonstrated by work performed by other work groups within The Green Grid. Thus, energy use is not currently proportional with workload.[1]
The metrics proposed in this white paper deal with average utilization, which means that the peak and minimum utilization of a resource may be substantially different. The goal of these metrics is to better track and communicate how particular ICT services are being consumed in pursuit of both efficiency and effectiveness in specific IT data centers.
[1] “Explanation of the calculation of server daily power consumption and power supply use,” Table 2, December 2015. Comments provided to EU Lot 9 consultant responsible for the Lot 9 Task 1 to 7 Reports by DIGITALEUROPE, prepared by The Green Grid SERT Analysis Working Group.
