Calculating efficiency in the data center

Overview

Before data centre infrastructure efficiency can be benchmarked using PUE or other metrics, there must be agreement on exactly which power consumptions constitute IT loads, which consumptions constitute physical infrastructure, and which loads should not be counted. Unfortunately, commonly published efficiency data is not computed using a standard methodology, and the same data centre will have different efficiency ratings when different methodologies are applied. This paper explains the problem and describes a standardised method for classifying data centre figures for efficiency calculations.