Green data center evaluation tools can help determine if a data center uses energy efficiently. Green data centers use energy-efficient building materials and water-saving technologies and recycle energy to reduce their carbon footprint.
Green data centers also incorporate renewable energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and hydropower projects to generate electricity for the facilities. Clean power enables data centers to achieve a high level of energy efficiency.
Green data center evaluation tools
A data center’s energy efficiency and costs can be evaluated using various tools. Information about a data center’s energy consumption, operating costs, and carbon footprint can be gathered from different sources, such as power meters, metering systems, and utility bills.
Green data center evaluation tools help evaluate a data center’s environmental performance and improve its sustainability. There are two main green data center evaluation tools: lifecycle and operational.
- Lifecycle tools. such as Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating (STARS), enable users to evaluate a data center’s environmental performance throughout its entire lifecycle.
- Operational tools. such as the Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric, enable users to evaluate a data center’s energy efficiency.
Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
is a way to measure the efficiency of a data center compared to a conventional office building. PUE is defined as the total power a data center uses divided by the energy used by the IT equipment in that data center. The goal with PUE is 1.0.
Sunbird Green DCIM
Numerous tools are available to monitor and optimize a data center’s energy consumption. These tools can help a data center operator to reduce energy costs, increase energy efficiency, and minimize the environmental impact of their data center facilities. The most commonly used energy and cooling optimization tool is the Sunbird EMM.
Sunbird is a solution that allows for managing a data center facility’s power, water, and thermal needs. It w provides users with a single interface to monitor, display, and manage the environmental aspects of their data centers.
There are plenty of data center monitoring tools out there that can help you keep your servers running smoothly and efficiently. Not all of them, however, are made with the environment in mind. That’s why the Sunbird DCIM gives you a full picture of what’s going on inside your data center, so you can eliminate waste and save energy. The Sunbird offers global visibility into your data center infrastructure and allows you to see what’s happening on every server at any given time:
The Sunbird DCIM is a green retroactive data center monitoring tool that gives you a full view of how each component of your data center is operating, including which servers are running cooler or warmer than they should be and which ones have been shut off because they aren’t even being used.
With up-to-the-minute information on your current usage, you can use the Sunbird to predict future needs and plan for energy efficiency. For example, if your IT department knows that in three months, it’s going to need an extra server for an upcoming project, it can make sure to get one ordered (and turned on) before the deadline—cutting down on wasted energy when it doesn’t need to be used.
Environmental Efficiency
One of the biggest challenges of designing a green data center is evaluating the many factors contributing to its overall efficiency. From the hardware to the facility layout and the design to the maintenance and construction, various elements play into how green a data center truly is.
Environmental efficiency is a hot topic these days. A green data center is an essential part of an environmentally friendly enterprise. To ensure that your data center’s environmental efficiency meets your expectations and even challenges your competitors, numerous tools can help you evaluate your energy efficiency.
But before using monitoring tools, you should know the metrics. The most popular metrics are:
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Power usage effectiveness (PUE)
- Cost of Energy
- Water consumption and water efficiency
- Waste generation and waste reduction
The rapidly increasing popularity of green computing means that many new tools are available to help you identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency in your data center.
Green data center optimization factors
Many factors contribute to the overall optimization of a data center. These factors range from simple things like the temperature of the server room and the location of the data center to more advanced concepts such as power usage effectiveness (PUE), power availability efficiency (PAE), and equipment utilization.
Here is a list of green data center optimization factors:
- Basic data center temperature
- Server room location
- Power usage effectiveness
- Power availability efficiency
- Equipment utilization
Data center managers must consider various factors when they want to optimize their eco-friendly data center initiatives. The first step is to know the company’s mission and why it is essential to pursue green data center operations, which will help them decide what these initiatives should be.
Data centers also need to be aware that different sets of standards and guidelines need to be considered when companies want to pursue these green optimization factors. Some environmental impacts are considered more harmful than others in each country. They need to consider this when setting up their green data center optimization strategy.
Conclusion
Many companies would like to pursue sustainable solutions in their day-to-day operations. They need to know how they can achieve more enormous reductions in energy consumption.
A new data center can be either a net addition to or a net subtraction from its local environment. A new building that houses a data center must be designed to accommodate all of the equipment necessary for its function and account for things like temperature and humidity control and even natural light.
In addition to these basic requirements, many different green data center design tools help optimize energy consumption in other ways. If a company intends to use renewable energy sources in its facility’s operation, it can choose from a variety of green data center architecture techniques to increase its efficiency.