August 8, 2007

Green Grid Lays Out Technology Roadmap

The Green Grid consortium outlined its 2007 deliverables and technology roadmap, ZDNet reports. But first, the group says it needs to nail down metrics on data center energy efficiency.

Gartner recently panned Green Grid for not doing more, but officials from the group say that you need to start with baseline metrics-?which don’t exist today-?before you do anything.

Specifically, The Green Grid has announced the following deliverables:

Data Collection

• Data Center Standards and Metrics Inventory (Q3’07) -? this study will document existing standards and metrics for energy efficiency, identify coverage gaps and make recommendations for future development.
• The Green Grid Metrics: Describing Data Center Power Efficiency (Q3’07) -? this study will be an update to The Green Grid’s existing study on data center efficiency metrics and will look at workload classification through a data center segmentation model.
• Operationalizing Energy-Efficiency Data Collection (Q4’07) -? this study will identify the requirements for collecting and aggregating data center power consumption data.

Data Assessment

• Data Center Efficiency Baseline Market Study (Q3’07) -? this study on the current state of the industry will allow The Green Grid to identify key factors driving companies to take action on data center power consumption and the challenges in doing so. Collecting and analyzing this data will help to provide companies with a baseline to compare their own initiatives, goals and performance.
• Operational Best Practices (Q4’07) -? these studies will focus on right-sizing the data center and will outline best practices in the adoption of virtualization and consolidation technologies.
• Database for Data Center Performance (Q4‘?07) -? The Green Grid will begin development work on a database focused on data center characteristics and performance schema.

Technology Proposals

• Initial Technology Roadmap (Q4’07) -? this roadmap provides an initial assessment of existing and emerging technologies affecting data center efficiency and performance, taking into consideration both return on investment and risk to the end user.
• Power Distribution Options for the Data Center Study (Q3’07) -? this study will look at the qualitative advantages and disadvantages of data center power distribution configurations.
• Cooling Options Study (Q4’07) -? this study will focus on the qualitative advantages and disadvantages of data center cooling architectures.

“Despite the fact that power consumption is one of the most important issues facing IT today, there is a lack of guidelines and resources available for those looking to drive a change,” said Lawrence Lamers, director of The Green Grid. “The Green Grid is focused on building the foundation and launching the key technology deliverables required to improve data center energy efficiency -? both for existing data centers and for the design and operation of future ones.”

A new EPA report says that data centers in the U.S. have the potential to save up to $4 billion in annual electricity costs through more energy efficient equipment and operations, and the broad implementation of best management practices.

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