Data centre efficiency comes under independent scrutiny

The British Computer Society (BCS) today shared the preliminary results of efforts to develop an independent data centre efficiency model for end users.

The model, which has been under development for nearly a year, enabled the BCS to share best practice on reducing power consumption and increasing efficiency in the data centre at an event hosted by Grid Computing Now, the government-funded IT infrastructure knowledge transfer network run by IT trade body Intellect.

The dedicated Data Centre Specialist Group (DCSG) is developing the model and its chairman, Zahl Limbuwala was on hand to present key findings on its development so far.

Limbuwala said only 40 per cent of the power supplied to data centre is actually used by its equipment. The rest is wasted by inefficient data centre design, server utilisation and systems configuration.

He said: "There are a few data centre efficiency products in the market today, but most focus on the hardware, software or network layers. No one product is able to look at these issues end-to-end. So ours is a mathematical model that looks at the end-to-end problem to tell you the true cost of your data centre power."

A key problem identified with over-provisioning data centres so they drew more power than needed was the manufacturer's nameplate, which gives an indicative measure of how much power a server will use. But Limbuwala said: "The power used 'in situ' is usually less than is given on the nameplate."

He advised companies to do their own specification tests on new equipment, using a clamp meter to optimise the amount of power provisioned for each server.

He also said the DCSG was looking to introduce a new proposed energy rating scheme beyond the government's energy 'Star' equivalent, base on its model that would help users analyse the power-to-performance ratio of different servers.

"And we are working with vendors to get them to supply server specification data in an electronic or machine readable format for users to input into our model," said Limbuwala.

The DCSG is currently inviting the input of users, vendors and interested groups to refine the model in its final development stages before its release in January next year. It has also published a white paper on the model's development that is available to download from the DCSG website after registering.

The DCGS was set up at the beginning of this year to provide non-commercial assessment of new technologies and practices and enhance the communication of requirements and capabilities between data centre professionals and their users.

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