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Views: 44 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-03-04 Origin: Site
Traditionally, measuring the power capacity of a data center is usually defined by its maximum IT load or total input power capacity. Unfortunately, this approach tends to focus attention on the data center as an energy-intensive facility without expressing the value that the data center facility brings. As a result, power capacity is an incomplete and misleading description that can easily be questioned.
People describe the size of a data center based on its maximum energy consumption, believing that this can be measured in the same way as a car through engine displacement. Some may find this approach more attractive, but most people are more interested in knowing the specific classification of the type of vehicle being described, such as trucks, buses, vans, cars, motorcycles, etc. As well as what capabilities the vehicle has: fuel efficiency, top speed, number of passenger seats, or maximum load. This will give a true understanding of the vehicle's capabilities and suitability to meet the expected requirements.
According to the survey, the global data center electricity demand in 2018 was 198 TWh, which is about 1% of the global final electricity demand, which illustrates the impact of the data center industry on global energy use. Therefore, there is a real need to understand the power consumption of data centers.
There are many physical metrics that can be used to describe a data center facility, such as the size of the data center campus, the area inside the data center building, or the area of the data hall. But again, to describe a data center facility simply by the size of the campus may lead people to believe that its space is huge and even somewhat wasteful, not to mention the energy consumption of the data center, but few people care about the uses or the benefits that the data center facility brings.
Other energy-based metrics can be used, such as air flow and water turnover. The challenge with this, however, is that using these metrics in isolation may increase the energy consumption characteristics of a data center facility without providing any clues as to the value it brings.
For this reason other metrics should be considered to help convey information about the data center facility and make it easier to understand the size of the data center.
One option is to use IT-centric metrics, such as:
Data throughput Number of servers with network connectivity speed to major population areas Data storage capacity Total processing capacity Network connectivity (number of operators) The disadvantage of using these metrics is that they are somewhat technical and abstract and do not really convey the true value that data center facilities provide to people.
Using this approach will help the data center industry express the primary use of data center facilities and the ability of data centers to achieve their operational goals, so that people do not have to be concerned about data center energy consumption.
For data center facilities that perform multiple operations, a combination of functions can be used to describe, for example, "The data center facility can store up to 3 million hours of HD video, 2 million applications, and host up to 500,000 gamers running online at the same time."
As a further extension of this idea, "pros" and "cons" can also be quantified through the use of composite metrics to express the efficiency of the data center facility in achieving its primary purpose. Using this metric, the ratio should be obvious, and the greater the value, the better.
Data Center Useful Value = Strengths / Weaknesses
This may sound simple enough. However, just determining the "drawbacks" of the ratio also presents a range of options. Because this could be based on the power consumption of the data center facility, or it could be CO2 emissions, or the ratio could be based on the floor area of the data center building or service.
There are also other ways to evaluate data centers that will focus less on how much energy they use and more on the value and efficiency they bring to the connected world. That's what people need to be talking about.