THE GREEN GRID DATA

CENTER POWER
EFFICIENCY METRICS:
PUE AND DCiE

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Executive Summary
The Green Grid is an association of IT professionals seeking to dramatically raise the

energy efficiency of data centers through a series of short-term and long-term

proposals. This is an update to the very first white paper published by the Green Grid in

February 2007 called “Green Grid Metrics: Describing Data Center Power Efficiency” to

refine the nomenclature and intent of that paper. In that paper, The Green Grid

proposed the use of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and its reciprocal, Data Center

Efficiency (DCE) metrics, which enable data center operators to quickly estimate the

energy efficiency of their data centers, compare the results against other data centers,

and determine if any energy efficiency improvements need to be made. Since then,

PUE has received broad adoption in the industry but DCE has had limited success due

to the misconception of what data center efficiency really means. As a result, this

paper reaffirms the use of PUE but redefines its reciprocal as data center infrastructure

efficiency (DCiE). This refinement will avoid much of the confusion around DCE and will

now be called DCiE.

In the long term, The Green Grid is developing metrics to measure data center

productivity as well as efficiency metrics for all major power-consuming subsystems in

the data center. To promote these metrics and drive greater data center energy

efficiency for businesses around the world, The Green Grid will publish future white

papers that provide detailed guidance on using these metrics. We will also continue to

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collaborate with organizations such as the EPA, ECMA and Climate Savers that

promote a similar goal and vision.

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Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5

Short Term (Tactical)....................................................................................................... 6

Long Term (Strategic) ................................................................................................... 10

Summary....................................................................................................................... 13

References.................................................................................................................... 15

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Introduction

The Green Grid believes that several metrics can help data centers better understand

and improve the energy efficiency of their existing data centers, as well as help them

make smarter decisions on new data center deployments. In addition, these metrics

provide a dependable way to measure their results against comparable IT

organizations.

Why the need for greater energy efficiency? Because data center power and cooling are

two of the biggest issues facing IT organizations today, and growing companies need a

way to control these costs while enabling future expansion. With more efficient data

centers, IT organizations can better manage increased computing, network, and storage

demands, lower energy costs, and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO)—all while

remaining competitive and able to meet future business needs.1

The Green Grid is a non-profit trade organization of IT professionals that addresses

power and cooling requirements for data centers and the entire information service

delivery ecosystem. The Green Grid does not endorse any vendor-specific products or

solutions, but instead provides recommendations on best practices, metrics, and

technologies designed to improve overall data center efficiency.

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Short Term (Tactical)

The Green Grid recognizes the importance of establishing metrics for data center

efficiency, and offers guidance on technologies that claim to improve performance-per-

watt. Ideally, these metrics and processes will help determine if the existing data center

can be optimized before a new data center is needed. In the earlier white paper, the

Green Grid supported two related metrics Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)2 and Data

Center Efficiency (DCE)2,3. Since then PUE has received broad adoption in the industry

but DCE has had limited success due to the misconception of what data center

efficiency really means. As a result, this paper re-affirms the use of PUE but redefines

its reciprocal as data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE). This refinement will avoid

much of the confusion around DCE and will now be called DCiE.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Data center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE)

The PUE is defined as follows:

PUE = Total Facility Power (1)

IT Equipment Power

and its reciprocal, the DCiE is defined as:

DCiE = 1 = IT Equipment Power x 100% (2)

PUE Total Facility Power

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For equations 1 and 2, the Total Facility Power is defined as the power measured at the

utility meter — the power dedicated solely to the data center (this is important in mixed-

use buildings that house data centers as one of a number of consumers of power). The

IT Equipment Power is defined as the equipment that is used to manage, process,

store, or route data within the data center. It is important to understand the components

for the loads in the metrics, which can be described as follows:

1. IT Equipment Power. This includes the load associated with all of the IT equipment,

such as compute, storage, and network equipment, along with supplemental equipment

such as KVM switches, monitors, and workstations/laptops used to monitor or otherwise

control the data center.

2. Total Facility Power. This includes everything that supports the IT equipment load

such as:

• Power delivery components such as UPS, switch gear, generators, PDUs,

batteries, and distribution losses external to the IT equipment.

• Cooling system components such as chillers, computer room air conditioning

units (CRACs), direct expansion air handler (DX) units, pumps, and cooling

towers.

• Compute, network, and storage nodes.

• Other miscellaneous component loads such as data center lighting.

The PUE and DCiE provides a way to determine:

• Opportunities to improve a data center’s operational efficiency.

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 • How a data center compares with competitive data centers.

• If the data center operators are improving the designs and processes over

time.

• Opportunities to repurpose energy for additional IT equipment.

While both of these metrics are essentially the same, they can be used to illustrate the

energy allocation in the data center differently. For example, if a PUE is determined to

be 3.0, this indicates that the data center demand is three times greater than the energy

necessary to power the IT equipment. In addition, the ratio can be used as a multiplier

for calculating the real impact of the system’s power demands. For example, if a server

demands 500 watts and the PUE for the data center is 3.0, then the power from the

utility grid needed to deliver 500 watts to the server is 1500 watts. DCiE is quite useful

as well. A DCiE value of 33% (equivalent to a PUE of 3.0) suggests that the IT

equipment consumes 33% of the power in the data center.

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 Figure 1: Illustration of How PUE and DCE Would Be Calculated In A Data center

In Figure 1, Total Facility Power is measured at or near the facility utility’s meter(s) to

accurately reflect the power entering the data center. This should represent the total

power consumed in the data center. The data center-only portion of a building utility

meter should be measured since power not intended to be consumed in the data center

would result in faulty PUE and DCiE metrics. For example, if a data center resides in an

office building, total power drawn from the utility will be the sum of the Total Facility

Power for the data center, and the total power consumed by the non-data center offices.

In this case the data center administrator would have to measure or estimate the

amount of power being consumed by the non-data center offices (an estimate will

obviously introduce some error into the calculations).

IT Equipment Power would be measured after all power conversion, switching, and

conditioning is completed and before the IT equipment itself.

The most likely measurement point would be at the output of the computer room power

distribution units (PDUs). This measurement should represent the total power delivered

to the compute equipment racks in the data center.

The PUE can range from 1.0 to infinity. Ideally, a PUE value approaching 1.0 would

indicate 100% efficiency (i.e. all power used by IT equipment only). Currently, there are

no comprehensive data sets which show the true spread of the PUE for data centers.

Some preliminary work indicates that many data centers may have a PUE of 3.0 or

greater, but with proper design a PUE value of 1.6 should be achievable4. This theory is
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supported by measurements completed by Lawrence Berkley National Labs5 which

shows that the 22 data centers measured had PUE values in the 1.3 to 3.0 range. Other

research indicates that PUE values of 2.0 are achievable with proper design6. However,

there is currently no comprehensive industry data set that shows accurate PUE

statistics for data centers.

Furthermore, there is no general agreement on what constitutes an efficient or

inefficient data center. In the future the Green Grid will offer values that profile target

PUE and DCiE metrics for a variety of typical data center configurations.

In the short term, The Green Grid suggests that data center owners begin using either

the PUE or DCiE metrics. While the measurement points may not be clearly defined,

The Green Grid feels it is important to begin measuring data center efficiency, even if

the method currently requires data manipulation. In addition, The Green Grid also

encourages data center owners to share and compare their respective PUE and/or

DCiE results, which will help each data center owner better analyze their measurement

methodology as well as understand how their results compare to the rest of the industry.

Long Term (Strategic)

A mixed-use building may house any number of functions, such as data center(s), labs,

offices, etc. For these types of mixed-use environments, determining the power usage

of just the data center environment is difficult. This is particularly true when the utility

power grid enters the building through a single entrance point (e.g., through a utility

room) and is then distributed to various building locations. These building configurations

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also make it difficult to determine the power losses between the power entry into the

building and its delivery to the data center.

To further complicate the calculation of PUE and DCiE, the latest cooling technologies

integrate cooling elements such as pumps, refrigeration, blowers, and heat exchangers

within the IT equipment itself. These technologies blur the lines between what has

traditionally been a clear delineation between facility equipment and IT equipment.

However, equipment used to provide power and cooling to the data center must be

accounted for in the metrics described in this paper.

As part of the effort to promote dramatic efficiency improvements in the data center, The

Green Grid will provide clearer distinctions between facility and IT equipment and

recommend power consumption measuring techniques throughout the data center, as

well as for the equipment itself.

Data Center Productivity (DCP)

For the long term, The Green Grid is working on metrics to define data center

productivity. This is the natural evolution from PUE and DCiE and such a metric could

be in a form that looks as follows4:

Data center Productivity = Useful Work (4)

Total Facility Power

While data center productivity is much more difficult to determine, members of The

Green Grid feel that this is a key strategic focus for the industry. In effect, this

calculation defines the data center as a black box – power goes into the box, heat
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comes out, data goes into and out of the black box, and a net amount of useful work is

done by the black box. This in some ways parallels the work being done with the EPA

and Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) at the server level in which

the SPEC working group may produce a standard on the performance of a system, and

the EPA provides a process by which to measure power consumed by the server. The

Green Grid hopes to eventually increase the scope of that work to all IT equipment and

will require broad participation from the IT community to help guide and define this work.

Further Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) Developments

The Green Grid will also consider the development of metrics that provide more

granularity for the PUE and DCiE metrics by breaking it down into the following

components:5

PUE= 1 = Cooling Load Factor (CLF) + Power Load Factor (PLF) + 1.0

DCiE

Where all factors are ratios that are divided by the IT Load and:

• 1.0 represents the normalized IT Load. Effectively this is the IT Load Factor

(ILF) but is always 1.0.

• Cooling Load Factor (CLF) is the total power consumed by chillers, cooling

towers, computer room air conditioners (CRACs), pumps, etc. divided by the

IT Load.

• Power Load Factor (PLF) is the total power dissipated by switch gear,

uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), power distribution units (PDUs), etc.

divided by the IT Load.

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These metrics will be designed to address the blurring of the lines between the IT

equipment and facility infrastructure as discussed above. The Green Grid will look at

these and other possible PUE and/or DCiE related metrics in the future.

Component Efficiency Standards

The Green Grid will also work with the industry to define energy efficiency guidelines for

all of the components in the data center. Such components include the following:

• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)

• Switch gear

• Chillers

• Computer room air conditioners

• Direct expansion (DX) units

• Pumps

• Cooling tower

• Generators

• Distribution losses external to the racks

• Power distribution units (PDUs)

• Batteries

• Lighting

• Servers

• Storage

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This effort will require close collaboration with other industry bodies such as the

American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

Summary
In addition to developing best practices, metrics, guidelines, and standards to help

improve data center efficiency, The Green Grid also proposes defining metrics at the

rack level as rack-level cooling solutions become more prominent. The group will also

offer guidance for measuring both power consumption and “useful work” at both the

facility and rack levels, and will continue to provide technical updates as these metrics

and measurement techniques evolve. In the meantime, The Green Grid recommends

the use of either PUE or its reciprocal, DCiE.

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References
1
Patterson, M.K., Costello, D., Grimm P, Loeffler, M. (2007) “Data Center TCO; A

Comparison of High-density and Low-density Spaces,” THERMES 2007, Santa Fe,

NM

2
Malone, C., C. Belady. (2006) “Metrics to Characterize Data Center & IT Equipment

Energy Use,” Proceedings of 2006 Digital Power Forum, Richardson, TX. [http://

cool.rsn.hp.com/papers/200609%20DPF%20Final.pdf\t_parent]

3
Rassmussen, N., “Electrical Efficiency Modeling of Data Centers,” White Paper #113,

APC. (2005). http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/NRAN-66CK3D_R1_EN.pdf

4
Belady, C., “How to Minimize Data Center Utility Bills,” Line 56. (September 5, 2006).

“https://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7881” http://www.

line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7881

5
Greenberg, S., E. Mills, B. Tschudi, P. Rumsey, and B. Myatt. (2006). “Best Practices

for Data Centers: Results from Benchmarking 22 Data Centers.” Proceedings of

the 2006 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings.

[http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/PUBS/PDF/ACEEE-data centers.pdf]

6
Patterson, M.K., Pratt, A., Kumar, P., “From UPS to Silicon, an End-to-End Evaluation

of Data Center Efficiency, Proceedings of the EPA Event: Enterprise Servers and

Data Centers: Opportunities for Energy Savings.” (February 2006) HYPERLINK

“http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/downloads/MPatterson_APratt_Case_Study.

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 pdf”,“http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/downloads/MPatterson_APratt_Case_Stu

dy.pdf” http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/downloads/MPatterson_

APratt_Case_Study.pdf

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