Green Grid Data Center Indicator + CADE = Something useful!
The following posting originally appeared on Michael Manos' Loose Bolts blog.
There are times when two concepts merge and the result makes something better than the whole. It is not unlike the old television commercial where two people collide into each other. One eating a chocolate bar, the other a vat of peanut butter. The resulting lines are television gold:
“Your chocolate is in my peanut butter!”
“Your peanut butter is on my chocolate!”
“HEY!” (in unison with smiles)
I have been anxiously awaiting for the Green Grid to publish their work on the Data Center Indicator tool. My good friend Christian Belady and the incredible folks in the Technical workgroups came up with something that made me smile and gave CADE a way to be a viable metric.
The Data Center Indicator Tool gives you a visual representation across all factors important to operating and measuring a data center. Its no secret that I get quite passionate about the need to measure your data center. The lack of strict and rigorous uniform measurement across the data center industry is one of the biggest tragedies we are waiting to inflict upon ourselves.
This tool is not necessarily for beginners as it assumes you have a good set of data and active measurement already in place. However, in terms of quickly identifying trends and understanding your environment, I find it quite unique and interesting. In fact, many of the same factors represented are rolled up into the CADE metric.
The white paper which has been published on the Green Grid Site (White Paper #15) Is a great way to have a holistic view at your environment over time and is even suitable for executives not familiar with the intricacies of Data Center or Mission Critical environment facilities. If one takes the rolled up percentage in CADE and combines it with this type of Graph you have a great KPI, and a mechanism which makes the information actionable. That dear readers is what any facilities manager can use.
-Mm