Growing computing and storage requirements coupled with rising electricity costs and mandates for high availability mean that the power and cooling of IT server infrastructure is becoming increasingly expensive. In some cases, power and cooling costs can rival or exceed the cost of the infrastructure itself. Capturing and analyzing efficiency metrics can improve management decision-making in several areas:

• Make sense of energy usage data and identify areas of opportunity.
• Calculate the real Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of infrastructure components (i.e. including energy costs).
• Provide a baseline for calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) of new energy-saving initiatives.
• Improve capacity planning for power and cooling infrastructure.
• Avoid costly brownouts and service interruptions.
• Meet corporate priorities for "green" initiatives.

Overall Energy Efficiency

One of the most popular power/cooling metrics (a variation of which is used...