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Guided by the Green Grid

As business demands increase, so too does the number of data center facilities and the amount of IT equipment they house. With escalating demand for data center operations and rising energy costs, it is essential for data center owners and operators to monitor, assess and continually improve performance using energy efficiency and environmental impact metrics. “Overall, global data center traffic is estimated to grow threefold from 2012 to 2017 and although data centers are becoming more efficient, their total energy use is projected to grow,” said Deva Bodas, principal engineer and lead architect for Server Power Management at Intel Corporation and board member for The Green Grid. Government and industry regulators are now adding increased pressure for energy-efficient computing in order to reduce the carbon footprint while data center managers fear they may reach a point of resource limitations.

The ever-present issue is that with such a diverse range of efficiency assessment approaches, many organizations are unclear of what exactly their efficiency assessments should entail. The Green Grid Association, a global consortium, provides a forum where IT, facilities and other C-level executives come together to discuss different options for implementing standardized data center measurement systems. Through data collection and analysis, assessment of emerging technologies and exploration of top data center operation practices, industry-leading metrics are collaboratively devised by end users, policy makers, technology providers, facility architects and utility companies. Many data center efficiency metrics established by the Green Grid task force are now industry-standard, including Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE™), Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE™), Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE™), Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE™) and Data Center Productivity (DCP). These globally adapted metrics are employed by BRUNS-PAK as a dependable way to measure specific data center results against comparable organizations, improve existing data center efficiencies and make intelligent decisions in new data center deployments.

BRUNS-PAK fully maximizes the metrics, technical resources and educational tools that the Green Greed provides to accurately assess various key elements of data center efficiency. Standardized life cycle assessments such as the Green Grid’s Data Center Maturity Model (DCMM) and Data Center Life Cycle Analysis are essential resources used by BRUNS-PAK in conversations with data center owners to give the knowledge required in deciding whether to rebuild or renovate, predict expected returns and identify areas of IT operations that require improvement. In addition to the standard PUE metric, BRUNS-PAK also leverages Green Grid’s DCeP (Data Center Energy Productivity), a new equation that quantifies useful work that a data center produces based on the amount of energy it consumes and allows each organization to define “useful work” as it relates to their unique business. Additionally, the EDE (Electronic Disposal Efficiency) metric is implemented by BRUNS-PAK to help data center operators evaluate how their outdated electronic equipment is managed and disposed. It the combination of these recognized metrics that guide the design of all of BRUNS-PAK facilities.

Following the five core tenants of the Green Grid Design Guide, a new architectural approach to how data centers are built and modernized that focuses on energy efficiency, BRUNS-PAK takes a holistic approach to data center design that leverages such efficiency metrics from start to finish.

The Green Grid Design Guide is described as “a guide for the standardization and evolution of key capabilities” and is based on five core tenants that BRUNS-PAK factors into every data center design:

Fully Scalable:

ƒAll systems/subsystems scale energy consumption and performance to use the minimal energy required to accomplish workload.

Fully Instrumented:

ƒAll systems/subsystems within the datacenter are instrumented and provide real time operating power and performance data through standardized management interfaces.

Fully Announced:

ƒAll systems/subsystems are discoverable and report minimum and maximum energy used, performance level capabilities and location.

Enhanced Management Infrastructure:

ƒCompute, network, storage, power, cooling and facilities utilize standardized management/interoperability interfaces and language.

Policy Driven:

Operations are automated at all levels via policies set through management infrastructure.

Standardized Metrics/Measurements:

ƒEnergy efficiency is monitored at all levels within the datacenter from individual subsystems to complete datacenter and is reported using standardized metrics during operation.

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