Green Grid Releases Real-time Metrics for Data Center Cooling Performance

As data center operators continuously analyze ways to reduce energy usage while cutting costs, they have often relied on insights from The Green Grid to understand data center cooling performance.

That’s why many IT managers were interested in the consortium’s release of the Performance Indicator (PI), a new real-time multi-metric view that delivers a more comprehensive way to understand data center cooling performance. Up until recently, data center operators have used the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric, also released by the Green Grid.

The Green Grid noted that there had been feedback that the PUE did not take into account other aspects of a data center’s performance in determining efficiencies. The Performance Indicator takes into account the IT thermal resilience and IT thermal conformance in addition to the PUE ratio.

PUE is determined by taking the ratio of total facility power and dividing it by IT equipment power. It’s considered optimal when the ratio is close to 1 to 1, but it should at least be less than 2 to 1.

“While PUE is an effective step forward to measure current-day energy efficiency, in order to establish a more complete view of facility cooling, the requirement to calculate cooling effectiveness and the data center’s future thermal state is also critical,” said Roel Castelein of The Green Grid.

According to Future Facilities’ Mark Seymour, who was chair of the white paper, the Performance Indicator will enhance the process of determining data center cooling performance by allowing business decisions to be made on scientific assessments.

For that reason, he said, PUE and “guesswork” were inadequate for companies that are now more driving to reduce energy costs.

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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.