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A MATURITY MODEL FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY
IN MATURE DATA CENTRES
Edward Curry
1
, Gerard Conway
2
, Brian Donnellan
2
, Charlie Sheridan
3
and Keith Ellis
3
1
Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
2
Innovation Value Institute, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
3
Intel Labs Europe, Intel Corporation, Leixlip, Ireland
Keywords: Data Centre, Energy Efficiency, Maturity Model, Data Centre Management, IT Management.
Abstract: Data centres are complex eco-systems that interconnect elements of the ICT, electrical, and mechanical
fields of engineering and hence the efficient operation of a data centre requires a diverse range of
knowledge and skills from each of these fields. The Innovation Value Institute (IVI), a consortium of
leading organizations from industry, the not for profit sector, and academia, have developed a maturity
model that offers a comprehensive, value-based method for organizing, evaluating, planning, and improving
the energy efficiency of mature data centres. The development process for the maturity model is discussed,
detailing the role of design science in its definition.
1 INTRODUCTION
According to McKinsey & Co. (Forrest and Kaplan,
2008) the world’s 44 million servers consume 0.5%
of all electricity and produce 0.2%, or 80 megatons,
of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Given a business
as usual scenario, by 2020 greenhouse gas emissions
from Data Centres (DCs) are projected to more than
double from 2007 levels (Webb, 2008). The efficient
operation of a data centre requires a diverse range of
knowledge and skills from a large ecosystem of
stakeholders. A DC requires expertise from
engineering (including electrical, civil, mechanical,
software, and electronic) to accountancy to systems
management. The Innovation Value Institute (IVI), a
consortium of leading organizations from industry
(including, Microsoft, Intel, SAP, Chevron, Cisco,
The Boston Consultancy Group, Ernst & Young, and
Fujitsu), the not for profit sector, and academia, has
developed and tested a maturity model for
systematically assessing and improving energy
efficient capabilities within mature DCs. The model
offers a comprehensive, value-based model for
organizing, evaluating, planning, and managing DC
capabilities for energy efficiency and fits within
IVI’s IT-Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF)
for managing IT. The model provides a high-level
assessment of maturity for IT managers with
responsibility for DC operations.
2 DC ENERGY COMSUMPTION
Power usage within a DC goes beyond the direct
power needs of servers to include networking,
cooling, lighting, and facilitie. Power draws for DCs
range from a few kilowatts for a rack of servers to
several tens of megawatts for large facilities. While
the exact breakdown of power usage will vary
between individual DCs, Figure 1 illustrates the
examination of one DC where up to 88.8% of the
power consumed by the DC was not used on
computation (U.S. EPA, 2007). International Data
Corporation (IDC) estimates that DC energy costs
will be higher than equipment costs by 2015
(Martinez and Bahloul, 2008). The cost of operating a
DC goes beyond the economic bottom line; there is
also an environmental cost. DCs are the fastest
growing contributor to the IT sectors environmental
footprint and are predicted to grow to 259 MtCO2e by
2020, up from 76 MtCO2e in 2002 (Webb, 2008).
3 DC ENERGY EFFICIENCY
With electricity costs being the dominant operating
expense of a DC, it is vital to maximize the
operational efficiency in order to reduce both the
Environmental and economic cost. Energy efficient
263
Curry E., Conway G., Donnellan B., Sheridan C. and Ellis K..
A MATURITY MODEL FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN MATURE DATA CENTRES.
DOI: 10.5220/0003953702630267
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Smart Grids and Green IT Systems (SMARTGREENS-2012), pages 263-267
ISBN: 978-989-8565-09-9
Copyright
c
2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)