iTRACS Designing A Metric To Measure Efficiency Of Data Centers
Data-center management software vendor <a href="https://www.itracs.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">iTRACS</a> has taken up the job of designing a metric for measuring the efficiency of data centers, in partnership with Intel. As of now, no standard measure for grading the performance of a data center exists. Though the issue is not a neglected one as most IT minds, including <a href="https://www.thegreengrid.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Green Grid</a> have been trying to figure out a way but there hasn't been a strong consensus yet.
With the onset of data centers, it is only better that a bottomline be decided so that the efficiency can be scaled against the metric, basically giving us an idea on the value for the business it serves.  If such a metric is possible is the main issue here. This is in regard to the fact that as we move up the ladder from power systems to balance sheets, the number of variables increase and so does the complexity of defining a specific value.
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Earlier, Green Grid came up with the concept of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_usage_effectiveness" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Power Usage Effectiveness</a> (PUE), a ratio of the amount of energy a data center consumes to the amount it’s IT equipment uses. Data center operators today roughly claim PUEs of 1.1 to 1.6. But this measure was soon scratched with the introduction of  alternative metrics like Corporate Average Datacenter Efficiency (CADE), PAR<sup>4</sup>, Power to Performance Effectiveness (PPE), each implementing different ways of metric. iTRACS is aiming for a metric that weighs asset work capacity, asset utilization and asset power utilization with a special stress on business value evaluation, which is supposed to be unique for every organization.
Why this is considered to be a huge hurdle is because of the number of applications for enterprise data centers. Not to forget, that efficiency might take the second spot when matched to data security. In such cases, would a metric be an accurate tool, is still an answer IT minds are trying to estimate.
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With the onset of data centers, it is only better that a bottomline be decided so that the efficiency can be scaled against the metric, basically giving us an idea on the value for the business it serves.  If such a metric is possible is the main issue here. This is in regard to the fact that as we move up the ladder from power systems to balance sheets, the number of variables increase and so does the complexity of defining a specific value.
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Earlier, Green Grid came up with the concept of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_usage_effectiveness" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Power Usage Effectiveness</a> (PUE), a ratio of the amount of energy a data center consumes to the amount it’s IT equipment uses. Data center operators today roughly claim PUEs of 1.1 to 1.6. But this measure was soon scratched with the introduction of  alternative metrics like Corporate Average Datacenter Efficiency (CADE), PAR<sup>4</sup>, Power to Performance Effectiveness (PPE), each implementing different ways of metric. iTRACS is aiming for a metric that weighs asset work capacity, asset utilization and asset power utilization with a special stress on business value evaluation, which is supposed to be unique for every organization.
Why this is considered to be a huge hurdle is because of the number of applications for enterprise data centers. Not to forget, that efficiency might take the second spot when matched to data security. In such cases, would a metric be an accurate tool, is still an answer IT minds are trying to estimate.
Source: #-Link-Snipped-#Â Image Credit: #-Link-Snipped-#
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