ASHRAE versus data center operators - my money is on the operators by Peter Judge

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 19 2010)

1. 

   Last week I spoke about PUE, the measure of data center efficiency which is now close to universal. This week we hear of another standard - ASHRAE 90.1 - and yet there's a group of the world's most advanced data center operators arguing against it. What's going on?

   We're talking about two very different standards here. The argument is between light touch and heavy, between results or methods.  

   Last week, I listed several weaknesses of PUE. It doesn't take into account the results coming out of the data center, it doesn't take into account the environment where the data center is, and it ignores some details of what power is actually used for. 

   The strength of PUE, however, is just exactly this simplicity. 

   What happens if you start to get more specific? Well, one thing that can happen is you start to get prescriptive. . ASHRAE - the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers - has a standard called 90.1, which determines energy efficiency of buildings and is included in many of the codes to which buildings must be built. 

   
   ASHRAE has extended 90.1 to data centers - after all they are just another kind of building - but a group of data center operators is calling foul. And the reason - as they see it - is that ASHRAE is overstepping the mark. The standard doesn't just specify how efficient the data center should be, it tells the operator how to achieve that efficiency.
   
   The group - led by Google, and also including Amazon, Nokia and Microsoft - set out its complaint on a Google blog. 
   
   

   They object to being told to use "economizers" - systems that provide ambient air cooling. Even though these are good devices, which the objectors use widely, they aren't the whole answer, and building them into the rules would actually hinder the introduction of better technologies (liquid cooling being one obvious possibility). 

   
   That sounds a fairly clear argument, but it may all be a storm in a teacup. In an email to Data Center Knowledge, ASHRAE quietly points out that in fact its standard includes an opt-out, which allows data center operators to choose the Energy Cost Budget method, basically choosing other technology if it gives good results.
   
   

   That's all very well, say the Google-led group, but it seems they fear the ASHRAE standard may not be understood in great depth by the building regulators putting it into practice. If the opt-out is in the small print, some of those regulators might not spot it, seems to be their objection. 

   
   That's a fair objection. Rules that get too complex run the risk of being misapplied, or else of bending user behaviour out of shape and producing unintended consequences, as I pointed out in my pieces on cap and trade.
   
   

   But one thing that has come out very clearly from all this is that data center operators have very effective communications, and are becoming a powerful group in their own right. If the ASHRAE standard does include an opt-out, are regulators going to misapply the full standard on an alert operator?  I'd like to see them try. 
   
   
   

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