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A collaborative Data centre industry group known as the Green Grid has devised a new metric to determine a data centre’s energy effectiveness. Known as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), it is calculated by dividing the amount of power entering an installation by the amount of power used running its computer infrastructure.

The perfect measure of PUE would equal 1, so the nearer the calculated ratio is towards that perfect number, the more efficiently the installation is using its energy. The mechanics of calculating the PUE are quite simple. First take a measurement of energy usage close to the facility’s power meter. If the facility is part of a larger mixed use building or office block ensure that the reading is taken at the point where power is entering the data centre.

Next, take a measurement of the IT equipment load once power conversion, switching and conditioning is completed. Green Grid guidelines recommend that the most useful measurement point for doing this is at the output point for the Power Distribution Units (PDUs) contained within the computer room. By taking that measurement you will arrive at a figure for the total power delivered to the data centre server racks.

There have been many discussions, many articles talking about data center efficiency it will be interesting to see which one will get the backing to become the standard. I remember someone questioning a rating system and saying it’s all debateable, and yes it is, but we need a measurement or value so that we can determine how efficient we are being with our budget, with our IT. We can do this in the car world with MPG, granted values differ between the official figures and the ones you actually get, but it gives me a value, an operational assesement and ‘state of the union’, my car does 18 MPG, therefore if I bought new tyres, drove more smoothly, I might get 22 – where does that put my costs, my profitability and efficiency? I’m off to read up more.

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