Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE) is a metric developed by The Green Grid used to measure the energy efficiency of a data center. As the reciprocal of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), another popular metric from The Green Grid, it represents the percentage of the total energy consumed by the facility that is used by IT equipment, highlighting the effectiveness of the infrastructure in supporting IT operations with minimal energy overhead.
The formula to calculate DCIE is:
DCIE = IT Equipment Power / Total Facility Power
A higher DCIE percentage indicates greater efficiency, meaning a larger portion of the total energy consumption is being utilized by the IT equipment, with less energy lost to cooling, power conversion, and other supporting infrastructure.
An optimal DCIE would be 100%, signifying that all the energy consumed by the data center is used by the IT equipment, though this is practically unattainable.
Why Is DCIE Important?
DCIE is used by data center professionals to:
- Evaluate efficiency. DCIE is a valuable metric to assess the current energy efficiency of a data center and identify areas for improvement.
- Benchmark. It is useful for comparing the efficiency of a data center against industry standards or other data centers.
- Track progress. Monitoring DCIE over time allows data center professionals to understand how implementing energy-saving measures impacts efficiency.
- Make better decisions. Tracking DCIE can enable more informed decisions to meet energy efficiency and sustainability goals.
How to Measure and Calculate DCIE
Obtaining a DCIE measurement involves several steps to ensure accurate data collection and calculation.
- Identify measurement points. You will need to measure the total energy consumed by the entire data center and the power consumed solely by IT equipment.
- Install power meters. Install power meters at the appropriate points in the power path to measure facility power and IT equipment power. Consider intelligent rack PDUs.
- Collect data. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software can be used to collect the live measured readings from the power meters in your data center.
- Record measurements. Record power readings over a significant period of time to account for variations and obtain an average value. DCIM software can achieve this.
- Calculate DCIE. Divide the total facility power by the IT equipment power to get your DCIE percentage. For example, if the total facility power is 1,000 kW and the IT equipment power is 750 kW, the DCIE is 75%.
- Analyze results, implement improvements, and continuously monitor. Interpret your DCIE value to understand the efficiency of your data center. Based on the results, identify areas for improvement in energy efficiency such as optimizing cooling systems or upgrading to more efficient IT hardware. Continuously monitor DCIE to understand the impact of efficiency initiatives.
Drive More Efficient Data Center Operations with DCIM Software
Deploying Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software can potentially help improve data center energy efficiency and improve DCIE values.
Modern DCIM software provides:
- Complete power management. Automatically collect the live measured readings from intelligent rack PDUs and other key points in the power path so you can make smarter decisions to reduce energy consumption.
- More efficient facilities. Leverage data to drive more informed capacity planning so you can get the most utilization out of your existing facilities, reduce resource waste, and defer energy-intensive expansions.
- Avoidance of overcooling. Patented electronic ASHRAE psychrometric charts visualize the temperature and humidity of each rack to help you reduce cooling costs.
- Identification of ghost servers. A built-in report identifies all your potential ghost servers that waste energy sitting idle in your cabinets so you can decommission or repurpose them.
- The ability to understand costs any way You like. Analyze energy costs by data center, business unit, or application to identify power hogs, compare efficiencies, and drive more efficient behavior.
- More efficient private cloud or virtual environments. Integrate with VMware to map virtual machines to their physical hosts and then move those instances to the most efficient servers.
Want to see how Sunbird’s world-leading DCIM software can help you increase the efficiency of your data center? Get your free test drive now!