Overview of Data Centers Energy Efficiency Evolution

Data centers are becoming one of the major consumers of energy in modern economies accounting for a measurable fraction of the total energy consumption. Furthermore, the energy consumption of data centers has a high growth rate with the energy consumption doubling about every six years. With large data centers consuming several MW of power or even 10’s of MW energy efficiency and energy consumption of data centers have become of great importance economically and environmentally. Up to a decade or so ago it was common that the computing equipment in data centers only consumed a third or less of the total energy consumption. Today, in well-designed data centers the computing equipment consumes at least 60 – 70% of the total power, and in some designs as much as 90% or more of the total power. To further enhance energy efficiency various forms of energy reuse is also pursued thereby reducing the energy consumption for other purposes and hence also contributing to reduced emissions. Reducing the energy consumption for computing has for the last decade also been one of the key drivers for CPU and platform vendors. Increasingly, energy efficient computing system and data center design requires an integrated approach to server and system design, cooling and potential energy reuse. In this chapter we will review recent developments as well as emerging technologies for energy efficient server and data center designs, as well as the challenges in using clean energy sources.