Title: Self-test Quiz: Section 3.2
Course: ICT Sustainability

Q: Facilities are often overcooled with air temperatures (and hence chilled water temperatures, where used) colder than necessary, resulting in an energy penalty.
- True
- False (False)
A: True
Feedback: In order to avoid risk to operational continuity, expert advice should be sought before changing the environmental range for the facility.

Q: Which of the following are true of data centres?
- One of the most significant sources of inefficiency in data centres is the over-provisioning of space, power, or cooling and the facilities being run at part capacity.
- Monolithic, as opposed to modular design of facilities also represents a significant and frequently unnecessary capital expenditure.
- The service architecture, software, and deployment of IT services have a relatively minor impact on data centre efficiency. (The service architecture, software, and deployment of IT services have an impact at least as great as that of the IT hardware.)
- The existing service and physical estate offer few opportunities to achieve energy and cost reductions in data centres. (It is common to focus on new services and equipment being installed into the data centre but there are also substantial opportunities to achieve energy and cost reductions from within the existing service and physical estate.)
- The objective of air flow management is to maximize bypass air. (The objective of air flow management is to minimize bypass air, which returns to the cooling (CRAC/CRAH) units without performing cooling, and the resultant recirculation and mixing of cool and hot air, increasing equipment intake temperatures.)
A: One of the most significant sources of inefficiency in data centres is the over-provisioning of space, power, or cooling and the facilities being run at part capacity.; Monolithic, as opposed to modular design of facilities also represents a significant and frequently unnecessary capital expenditure.

Q: DCiE stands for ______________________.
A: data centre infrastructure efficiency / data center infrastructure efficiency / data cent* infrastructur* efficien*
Feedback: Further metrics developed include an IT productivity metric and a total energy productivity metric. The IT productivity metric indicates how efficiently the IT equipment provides useful IT services. This requires some measure of output of the centre, such as the number of standard tractions performed per unit of energy. The total energy productivity metric relates the useful IT services to the total energy consumption of facility.

Q: Which of the following statements apply to the argument for the European Commission voluntary Code of Conduct?
- Data centres have typically been designed with large tolerances for operational and capacity changes. (This is inefficient!)
- The large tolerances in data centre design result in power consumption inefficiencies. (The Code of Conduct and Best Practices documents are intended to reduce and assess the reduction of energy consumption in data centres.)
- Only a small fraction of the power consumed by the data centre is actually used by the IT systems.
- Most energy consumed by data centres is used up by redundant power and cooling systems.
- Most data centres are located in areas with the highest global average temperaures, making the cooling burden excessive.
A: Data centres have typically been designed with large tolerances for operational and capacity changes.; The large tolerances in data centre design result in power consumption inefficiencies.; Only a small fraction of the power consumed by the data centre is actually used by the IT systems.; Most energy consumed by data centres is used up by redundant power and cooling systems.

Q: Match the expected minimum practice for data centres (from the 2014 Best Practices Guildelines) with their description:
- Establish an approval board containing representatives from all disciplines (software, IT, monitoring and evaluation). Require the approval of this group for any significant decision, to ensure that the impacts of the decision have been properly understood and an effective solution reached. | Group involvement
- Carry out an audit of existing equipment to maximize any unused existing capability by ensuring that all areas of optimization, consolidation, and aggregation are identified prior to investing new material. The most important element to this in terms of impact is the IT equipment and the severity of impact is related to the frequency of refresh and replacement. | Consider the embodied energy in devices
- An organization should build only the level of resilience actually justified by business requirements and impact analysis. 2N infrastructures are frequently unnecessary and inappropriate. | Build resilience to business requirements
- It is possible to build a single data centre to provide multiple levels of power and cooling resilience to different floor areas. Many colocation providers already deliver this, for example, optional “grey” power feeds without UPS or generator backup. | Consider multiple levels of resilience
- The provisioning of excess power and cooling capacity in the data centre drives substantial fixed losses and is unnecessary. Planning a data centre for modular (scalable) expansion and then building out this capacity in a rolling program of deployments is more efficient. | Lean provisioning of power and cooling or a maximum of 18 months of data floor capacity
- Include the energy efficiency performance of the IT device as a high-priority decision factor in the tender process. This may be through the use of Energy Star, SERT (http://www.spec.org/sert/) or SPECPower (http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/) or similar metrics or through application or deployment of specific user metrics more closely aligned to the target environment, which may include service level or reliability components. | IT hardware – power
- Include the operating temperature and humidity ranges at the air intake of new equipment as high-priority decision factors in the tender process.Equipment should be able to withstand and bewithin warranty for the full range of 10°C to 35°C inlet temperature (50°F to 95°F) and humidity within 20% relative humidity to 80% relative humidity or 21°C (69.8°F) dew point. This is definedby the ASHRAE Class A2 allowable temperature and humidity range. | New IT hardware – basic operating temperature and humidity range
Also offered: Consider business use case for excess capacity; Establish reliable single-source providers for retrofit equipment.; Focus on short-term savings in provisioning decisions.
Feedback: The majority of the best practices are now defined as the expected minimum level of energy-saving activity. All expected practices should be applied to any data centre built from 2011 onwards.

Q: Considering the data centre as a complete system, the goal is to _________ the IT system and the infrastructure together to achieve facility efficiency.
A: optimize / optimise / optimi*e
Feedback: This is a word we use a lot!

Q: Match the term or concept to the correct definition:
- A global consortium of IT companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems around the globe. | Green Grid
- A voluntary measure intended to reduce and assess the reduction of energy consumption in data centres. | Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency
- An informal term that designated a (hopefully enlightened) person at the highest levels of government who is given authority over energy policy. In the US, Secretary of Energy is the formal term at the federal level. Here it refers to someone with that kind of power who is internal to a business. | energy czar
- To overcome some of the complexities of obtaining operational data from data centres and to provide a first level of information on initial energy-reducing strategies, the Green Grid has proposed the use of this simple indicator. | proxy
- Consumption of energy of the IT equipment in the data centre | IT load
- Air conditioning/cooling units for mechanical and electrical systems (chiller plant, fans, pumps) | facilities load
- The main IT equipment energy consumption divided by the total facility energy consumption (the range is between 0 and 1). A higher figure indicates better energy efficiency. | Data centre infrastructure efficiency (DCiE)
- Indicates how efficiently the IT equipment provides useful IT services. | IT productivity metric
- Relates the useful IT services to the total energy consumption of facility. | Total energy productivity metric
- Reflects not only the initial purchase price of assets, but also the less obvious initial costs of training personnel to use the new assets, the costs of upgrades over time, maintenance and operating expenses, and net salvage value (negative or positive) of the asset at the end of its life. It should also include social costs such as environmental cleanup and public health liabilities. | total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Add new technology or features to older systems, in this case relating to improved energy use efficiency. | retrofit
- A term used to describe a fully redundant power system For example, for every generator, UPS (uninterruptible power source), PDU (power distribution unit), and power receptacle inside a server rack, there exists a second generator, UPS, PDU, and receptacle that is fed from an entirely separate power system. | 2N infrastructure