The Environmental Protection Agency to Announce Performance Rating for Data Centers
The Environmental Protection Agency EPA will use the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric as the basis for its Energy Star for Data Centers ratings, the agency said this week. This increases the momentum to use PUE,which was proposed by the Green Grid and is rapidly becoming the standard by which green data centers are measured. The Energy Star rating given to a facility will be based on the average PUE ratio for the datacenter, calculated from 12 months of actual measured data. To calculate a facility’s PUE rating the facility’s total power usage is compared to the amount of power used by the IT equipment, in this manner revealing how much is lost in distribution and conversion. For example, an average PUE of 2.0 indicates that the IT equipment uses about 50 percent of the power to the building.
The EPA’s energy performance rating for data centers is tentatively planned for early 2010 and allow companies to track the energy efficiency of multiple data centers, and offer a basis for comparing the efficiency of different data centers. The rating will compare the energy use of one facility against that of similar facilities across the country, using the EPA’s unique 1-to-100 rating system. If this new proposed EPA Energy Star for datacenters rating gets wide adoption it will allow companies to track the energy efficiency of multiple data centers, and offer a basis for comparing the efficiency of different data centers. However as of last month the EPA said that just 110 data centers have shared their energy data.
(AMD) Introduces New Energy Efficient Processor
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), introduces 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron EE processor that runs data-center computers using 19-percent less energy. The new 40W ACP processor is designed for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing, web serving, or other highly dense environments. It offers a full suite of virtualization and power management capabilities so customers do not have to compromise on feature sets in order to deploy very low power servers.
“Adding the 40 watt EE power band to the Quad-Core AMD Opteron line-up helps our customers achieve maximum value for their unique data center needs across the board,” said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server Workstation Business, AMD. “The EE processor is ideal for cloud computing environments, which demand both extreme energy efficiency and a balanced system that can handle high transactional demands.”
The new processors will work on 40 watts of electricity, down from the 55 watts used by today’s lowest-power models, Fruehe said. That translates into a 62-percent jump in performance per watt. Performance per watt is a key metric that is closely tracked by the industry. Using less power while maintaining a chip’s level of performance can add up to millions of dollars of savings for a data center or large internet company on their energy bill.
Computers built with the new chip will be available from Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and International Business Machines Corp., said John Fruehe, a director of business development at Sunnyvale, California-based AMD.
SAS to Build USD 70 Million LEED Cloud Computing Facility
SAS has announced plans to build a USD 70 million cloud computing facility – a hub that will provide dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the internet, thereby allowing organisations to address their computing needs even without knowledge of, or expertise in the technology infrastructure. The company also revealed that the facility will host more than 1,400 R&D employees upon its completion, as part of an aggressive expansion plan, which will target the growing demand for ‘Software-as-a-Service’ (SaaS) based solutions in the Middle East.
The facility will be built according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for water and energy conservation. LEED recognises construction projects that demonstrate the utmost commitment to environmental sustainability and energy efficiency.
