* House of Representatives pass bill to study energy efficiency in data centers
The House of Representatives this month voted to approve a bill calling for a study of energy efficient servers.
The bill, which was passed by a vote of 414-4, recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency should study ways to improve the energy efficiency of both federal and private enterprise data centers.
According to House Bill 5646, the study should include an overview of growth trends and server utilization in data centers, an analysis of the impact to data centers through the use of energy efficient processors, the savings to federal agencies and private enterprise, and recommendations on the use of energy efficient servers in the data center.
The study will take place within 90 days of the passage of the bill by the Senate.
Michael Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, is the bill’s sponsor. He hopes enactment of the legislation will cause server manufacturers to provide energy efficient ratings for their servers not unlike the Energy Star ratings on today’s air conditioners and appliances.
The industry already has an initiative underway and Sun is testing DC powered servers to show how they can save costs in the data center. The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) – the same guys that give us performance metrics on servers – is creating a standard for server energy efficiency.
Sun’s “CoolThreads” chip and Intel’s Montecito are paying attention to energy efficiency too. Sun, HP, IBM, AMD and Dell created The Green Grid to promote energy efficient servers.
