The Datacentre Maturity Model(DCMM)tool can help businesses improve datacentre energy efficiency,hence their Power Usage Effectiveness(PUE),according to not-for-profit organisation The Green Grid.
The free DCMM tool allows datacentre managers to benchmark performance,determine levels of maturity and identify strategies to achieve greater energy efficiency and sustainability.The maturity model touches on every aspect of the datacentre including power,cooling,compute,storage and network.This gives datacentre managers a rounded view of their IT facility's performance.
Datacentres are crucial to an enterprise maintaining its competitive edge,but at the same time comprise cost-centres as their power consumption increases.
"At such times,it is important for CIOs and CFOs to have a grip of how their datacentres are performing,said David Snelling,European vice-chair at The Green Grid.
"Using DCMM capability to calculate performance will help them improve their PUE."
Today,CFOs are increasingly playing the role of chief sustainability officers(CSOs)and tools such as DCMM can help them measure and compare their progress in reducing energy consumption and in building an efficient and sustainable facility,Snelling added.A complete understanding of datacentre's energy patterns will help IT achieve a better PUE rate.In turn,this will help them improve the business's green credentials.
The online DCMM tool–launched by non-profit organisation The Green Grid last year–is a set of criteria for measuring progress towards greener and more sustainable datacentre practices.
Datacentre professionals can measure various aspect of their IT infrastructure.
"Only understanding the use and impact of mechanical cooling is not enough for IT executives looking to develop their datacentre strategy,"said Lex Coors,an advisory council and technical committee member at The Green Grid.
"Tools such as DCMM will offer a complete overview of current datacentre maturity levels and help IT executives decide the capital investment in their datacentres,"Coors said.
Using the DCMM tool alongside PUE helps guide the design and population of an enterprise's datacentre,achieving some of the most significant PUE reporting in the industry,experts said.
The call to use free online tools to improve a datacentre's sustainability comes as datacentre greenhouse gas emissions are rising.
In Western Europe alone,the datacentre energy consumption was at 56 TWh until 2007 but it is expected to nearly double(104 TWh)by 2020,according to the European Commission(EC).
