New energy efficiency metrics for the IT industry

Abstract

Reducing the technogenic impact of human activity on the ecology of the planet is a problem that is increasingly moving from a theoretical category into a practical one. The environmental situation is serious and requires more attention. One of the significant factors of the negative impact of humans on their environment is the emissions of harmful substances that occur during the production of electricity. The technical development of humanity and the widespread introduction of information technologies are characterized by an explosive growth in the number of electronic devices and the amount of data transmitted over information networks. This contributes to an increase in the need for computing resources for storing and processing this data, and as a result, the need for electricity is also increasing. Over the past 15–20 years, computing equipment has increased its computing power many times. The number of servers in operation is currently estimated at many millions of units, and the total energy consumption of the server park is becoming very significant in the structure of energy costs in all developed countries. In this article, we will analyze a way to reduce energy costs in the operation of servers and data centers, the application of which has a high potential for saving energy. We will give an example of a new way to evaluate the efficiency of IT equipment using a new factor – the server idle coefficient (SIC).