The Character of PUE - Part 2

Workload

Workload is considered to be the actual computing work processed in the data centre. There are many different types of workload, including, hosting, transactional, scientific computing, traditional enterprise and telecoms. Each workload will have a different set of equipment and software requirements and therefore differing energy demands.

Consequently the type of workload can significantly affect PUE. As a relationship of energy efficiency, PUE is not able to reflect in its calculation any aspect of the workload being conducted in the facility. This makes it possible to show a measure of energy efficiency, even though you may not be operating productively.

For instance, a data centre may be operating only a few servers and several hundred terabytes of storage. Its workload is considered small and the site has a PUE of 2.2. However, another data centre has extensive virtualised server farms, with peta-bytes of storage and processes a very high volume workload. This data centre also has a PUE of 2.2. The achievement of identical PUE profiles, while operating different workload environments, productivity profiles and power delivery requirements, creates an energy efficiency conundrum.