Increase Capacity and Improve Efficiency with Data Center Analysis from Modius

Modius OpenData for Data Center Analysis

Start Measuring Data Center Performance Today

Is your organization measuring data center performance metrics like Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)? If not, it's time to start! Why? Because a small improvement in data center performance could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars energy savings per year.

Start Saving Money with Capacity & Efficiency Analysis from Modius

Just ask the folks at Sybase. They are now saving over 25% per year in energy costs by improving data center energy efficiency with continuous data center monitoring & analysis (download the Uptime Case Study). Not only is Sybase saving money, they’re also helping the environment by reducing energy consumption. And so can you.

Modius Data Center Analysis Solution

Modius OpenData for Capacity & Efficiency Analysis brings together all your critical capacity and efficiency information together from across multiple sites tongither into one dashboard:

Next Steps

If you are ready to see Modius in action, sign up for a personalized demo. Or, if you are interested in learning more about how to get started with our solutions, read on.

Modius OpenData for Capacity & Efficiency Analysis

Modius Makes Measuring for Data Center Capacity and Efficiency Easy

Now Modius has made it easier than ever for you to track key metrics like data center PUE/DCiE so you can identify the top power consumers in your data center and help optimize your capacity.

Unlike typical approaches using 'sneaker-net' and Excel spreadsheets -- which can only provide point-in-time snapshots -- Modius provides real-time data center monitoring continuously throughout the day. We capture and store all the data and do all of the calculations so you don't have to. Easy-to-read data center metrics and analytics, presented in dashboards and reports, help you gain valuable insights to improved data center capacity and efficiency management.

Modius Offering

Modius has made it easier than ever for you to develop a data center performance baseline so you can identify the top power consumers in your data center. We’ve pioneered a software-based approach to monitoring and measuring all devices in the data center -- both networked and serial devices. This makes it easy for us to provide an extremely comprehensive level of data center metrics and analytics.

We can start small and increase the granularity of data center monitoring points over time. Our approach is to generate as much power and environmental intelligence as we can from all of the critical infrastructure equipment and relevant IT devices. And we collect data continuously throughout the day. Continuous data center monitoring and measurement allows more insightful correlation with other factors, such as outside air temperature, chiller set points, or server inlet temperature.

Challenges to Measuring Data Center Energy Efficiency

What is PUE?

Data Center Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is an efficiency metric that has been developed by The Green Grid™ consortium and others to provide a clear answer to the primary issue surrounding energy efficiency within the data center. In short, the data center metric provides an easy way to understand how much power is devoted to driving the actual computing/IT components (servers, for example) versus the ancillary support elements such as power, cooling, and lighting.

The data center PUE metric, and its close cousin Data Center Efficiency (DCiE), are being embraced by agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Energy (DOE). Consequently, these data center metrics are rapidly becoming industry standards that are gaining wide adoption.

How do you calculate Data Center PUE?

Both PUE and DCiE data center metrics attempt to isolate the amount of power that is required to run IT equipment by using it as a ratio against total power to the facility.

The objective is to improve data center energy performance until the PUE ratio is as close to 1 as possible. This would mean that for every $1 worth of power for IT work, the data center is spending only $1 worth of power for the support infrastructure, which is mostly cooling and power distribution.

Google Inc. is widely known to run some of the most efficient data centers in the world, and their PUE is currently approximately 1.2. But you don't have to be Google to achieve good results. Sybase was successful in slashing its data center DCiE/PUE from approximately 3.0 to 1.4. And Sybase uses relatively traditional IT and facilities equipment.

In reality, many data centers are not nearly that efficient. Instead, they spend anywhere from $2.5 to $3.5 dollars for every $1 of IT energy consumption. The goal, therefore, is that by measuring data center PUE (and DCiE), managers have a meaningful yardstick with which to measure and track energy performance, as well as determine whether the operational improvements they made over time actually improved energy efficiency.

Why is measuring data center PUE a challenge?

These data center metrics require inputs from a variety of equipment, which may include power meters, UPSs, PDUs, and even the servers themselves. To collect this data, a lot of ‘sneaker energy’ is often used by people that run around the facility and manually compile numbers from different device administrative screens. Once the data is collected, storing the resulting calculations and conducting trend analysis over time becomes a new challenge.