Federal Data Center Efficiency Legislation Mirrors Changing Times

Michael Bord
April 15, 2014

Last month the US House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that legislators believe will lead to the widespread adoption of energy efficiency improvement standards for government data centers. Though it still requires Senate approval to proceed, if adopted, the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2014 (HR 540) will require, among other things, the creation of an agency tasked with creating a strategy that promotes the adoption of energy efficient technologies, and enforces energy efficiency benchmarks for government data centers. 

The passing of HR540 is a reflection of the shifting paradigm data center managers have encountered over the past decade.  As data center reliability has improved to the point where downtime has become an infrequent occurrence, the focus has shifted toward utilizing IT device power and energy cooling resources efficiently to eliminate waste and improve organizations’ bottom line – although in this case, it’s the taxpayers’ bottom line in a manner of speaking.

Although the bill doesn’t mention any specific energy efficient technologies by name, it’s easy to envision how intelligent rack power distribution units and DCIM software solutions may have a pivotal role to play. The task of creating energy efficient data center begins with monitoring actual power loads to, for instance, determine which servers are candidates for consolidation, or can be cycled off during non-working hours. They can also be used for environment monitoring.

DCIM monitoring software and iPDUs are uniquely apt to take on the role of helping federal data center managers meet upcoming federal requirements. In addition to collecting information that inform energy and capacity planning decisions, they can be deployed as instruments of change that drive energy efficient behavior in an nearly autonomous way – making the task of meeting new energy standards an far simpler achievement.

Watch this video to learn how European data center managers are using iPDUs and DCIM to drive energy efficiency.