On the Need for Energy Efficiency Metrics That Span Integrated IT-Facility Infrastructures

Infrastructure efficiency metrics, such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE), have gained much traction within the industry for evaluating data center energy efficiency. Gradually, however, as the lines between traditional IT systems in the data center and the facility infrastructure supporting the data center get blurred, adaptations to the usage of infrastructure efficiency metrics will be required. This paper presents three cases where holistic data center energy efficiency does not necessarily track infrastructure efficiency, implicitly emphasizing the need for new metrics that address the IT-facility infrastructure in holistic fashion.