The European Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency launches today (November 19th 08).
The development of the code was led by European Commissioner, Paolo Bertoldi with "the aim to inform and stimulate data center operators and owners to reduce energy consumption in a cost-effective manner without hampering the mission critical function of data centers."
In its "Problem Statement" the Code says: "Historically data centers have been designed with large tolerances for operational and capacity changes, includeing possible future expansion. Many today use design practices that are woefully outdated."
The code will use the Green Grid's Data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE) metric to report measurements. (see link below for the full code and the best practice guide)
The code is voluntary and requires those signing up commit to a number of obligations including: "The following data should be collected monthly and reported annually in a data sheet to the European Commission DG JRC by 28 Februray at the latest for the previous year;
Energy consumption for main IT equipment. If meters are not installed to provide the level of detail indicated in the definition, energy consupmtion at the UPS output can be reported.
A description of equipment included in the measured IT energy consumption should be provided.
Total facility energy consumption If more meters are installed, data should be reported for these including a description of equipment included in the energy consumption IT rated electrical load capacity of the facility
Target inlet temperature for IT equipment (optional)
External monthly average ambient temperature (optional)
External monthly average dew point temperature (optional).
Consultation began in 2007 and included contributions from a broad range of data center experts including Robert Tozer of HP EYP, Patrick Fogarty of NormanDisneyYoung, Chrisitan Belady of HP (now with Microsoft) and other industry sources including Intel.
The full code and best practice guides can be found HERE