Why PUE Metrics are Critical to Data Center Operational Costs

Energy costs continue to rise. It is vital for IT organizations to make sure that their operational and working infrastructures such as data centers consume power as efficiently as possible. But how do you calculate this efficiency? This is where Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) comes in.

So what exactly is PUE?

PUE is a measure of how effectively the power coming into your IT facility is utilized for running servers, air condition, and power conditioning systems. PUE measures how much is wasted in transit from power source to power usage. To be more precise, PUE is the ratio of total power arriving at the data center facility to the total power consumed by the IT equipment at the facility.

Maximum power efficiency is represented as a PUE value of 1. This happens when all the power supplied to the facility is used only by the IT equipment. But this is not practically possible as there are several stages of both current and voltage regulation between the power supply and usage points. These stages of power conversion and distribution which always leads to power loss in the form of heat.

Companies who wish to be efficient must focus on maximizing their PUE by all means sensible so as to avoid wastage of power. Though the amount wasted may be negligible when we consider the size of the equipmens, over the years, this negligible amount would sum up to an enormous liability for the enterprise.

IT managers must be apprised of the fact that PUE serves as an important metric in determining the power efficiency of data centers. PUE provides a benchmark to measure and managed power consumption, thus leading to an overall positive impact on operational costs.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.