An overview of data center metrics and a novel approach for a new family of metrics

Abstract

Data centers’ mission critical nature, significant power consumption, and increasing reliance on them for digital information, have created an urgent need to monitor and adequately manage these facilities. Metrics are a key part of this effort as their indicators raise flags that lead to optimization of resource utilization. A thorough review of existing data center metrics presented in this paper shows that while existing metrics are valuable, they overlook important aspects. New metrics should enable a holistic understanding of the data center behavior. This paper proposes a novel framework using a multidimensional approach for a new family of data center metrics. Performance is examined across four different sub-dimensions: productivity, efficiency, sustainability, and operations. Risk associated with each of those sub-dimensions is contemplated. External risks are introduced, namely site risk, as another dimension of the metrics, and makes reference to a methodology that explains how it is calculated. Results from metrics across all sub-dimensions can be normalized to the same scale and incorporated in one graph, which simplifies visualization and reporting. The new family of data center metrics can help to standardize a process that evolves into a best practice to help evaluate data centers, to compare them to each other, and to improve the decision-making process.