Data center optimization firm Future Facilities has taken a partner to promote ACE, the modeling and simulation service which it offers for improving data center efficiency.

ACE scores the data center on three often-conflicting measures - availability, capacity and efficiency.  DCIM Solutions, an imaginatively-named vendor of data center infrastucture management (DCIM) solutions, will market the ACE metric as a tool called ACE Jumpstart which uses Future's software and a 3D model of the data center to analyzes its performance, showing how well the site is performing, how much it is costing, and how it can be improved.

ACE your space
Future Facilities provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of the temperature and airflow inside a data center. Its ACE metric was proposed in 2013 as a way to measure data center performance.

Behind the simple figures, ACE is based on air flows within a model of the site called the "virtual facility", and Future promises that it can be linked to existing datacenter management tools. The service includes a 90-day subscription to Future Facilities’ 6SigmaDC modelling software.

Future hopes that ACE may be adopted and developed by a body like the Green Grid or the Uptime Institute. Analyst firm The 451 has given it a cautious welcome: "We believe that at the business level, the ACE method or 'score' does have some merit," said 451 analyst Andy Lawrence in a report. "For example, although the score can be created by manual input into a spreadsheet, it is certainly possible, using DCIM tools for the underlying input and, possibly, linking to IT capacity management tools, to draw all the key data for such a score into a single screen and, to a degree, into a single and simple set of KPIs."

In principle, an ACE score couild be predicted, giving a guideline on the value of replacing one cooling method with another, in terms of cost and efficiency.

Sherman Ikemoto, director of Future Facilities said: "ACE Jumpstart will be further optimized for the data center owner/operator. It’s gratifying to see the ACE Assessment becoming adopted as an important metric for data center efficiency.”