A Comprehensive Reasoning Framework for Hardware Refresh in Data Centers

Abstract

With the increased trend of moving towards the consolidation of computing in larger facilities, and with the rise of paradigms such as Cloud, Smart Cities, and IoT, data centers have been highlighted as a major energy consumer. Yet, data centers exist purely to host IT services, which on average tend to account for the largest part of the overall facility energy consumption. Frequent refresh of IT hardware has emerged as a trend in hyper-scale data centers. However, the wider environmental impact of hardware refresh has become a concern. This work provides a comprehensive framework that helps identify the energy saving opportunities, while demonstrating the overall environmental impact related to hardware refresh. The work sheds new light on key relationships such as the one between hardware utilization and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) to drive efficiency. Various data center deployment scenarios are used as case studies (based on real-life datasets) to validate the proposed concepts.