Green Grid Data Center Power Efficiency Metrics: PUE and DCIE

       

Further reading

• Green Grid Metrics - Describing Data Centre Power Efficiency (1933)
• Paper: Green Grid Data Center Power Efficiency Metrics: PUE and DCIE (298)

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, Datacenter Efficiency (DCE) metrics, which enable datacenter operators to quickly estimate the energy efficiency of their datacenters, compare the results against other datacenters, 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 datacenter infrastructure effi ciency (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 datacenter. To promote these metrics and drive greater datacenter 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 collaborate with organisations such as the EPA, ECMA and Climate Savers that promote a similar goal and vision.