Datacenter PUE is facing pressure owing to the rise of cloud computing, as companies are now using fewer physical servers and relying more on cloud-based systems.
The recent survey from the Uptime Institute reveals that progress on data center energy efficiency has been hindered as a result of rapid improvements in the cloud computing space in the past five years. At present, the data centers consume roughly 2% of the global electricity. By 2030, this figure would increase to 8% as per experts. In addition to the massive computing power, a significant amount of energy is utilized in keeping the centers cool. This has given rise to the need for energy efficiency to reduce demand.
Data centers averaged a PUE of 1.67, as compared to a PUE of 1.8 in 2011, as per the Uptime Institute’s 2019 survey. Although there is a significant improvement, the industry is said to be losing ground. The study revealed that in the past two years, the advances in data center facility efficiency have deteriorated. Over the last ten years, the PUE ratio has decreased as innovations and improvements were focused on cooling systems.
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As the cloud is seeing higher adoption, physical data centers with storage and servers are rapidly going out of fashion. As these servers decline in number, data centers may soon become ancient relics, and the investment that is going into the development of better energy sources will peter away. There is also a distinct possibility that older data centers could shut down and there will be an increase in newer, modern and much more energy-efficient technology-driven data centers, found the survey.
The survey concluded stating that massive investment will be required to bring improvements to data center efficiency. Datacenter users can install more energy-efficient infrastructure in the coming years with the help of incentives or better economics. Several organizations are already in the process of modernizing their data centers, added the survey.
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Sneha Bokil is a Senior Editor with OnDot Media. She writes editorials on an array of topics ranging from IoT, AI, ML, and cloud computing, among others. She has over 9 years of experience in the field of content creation, where she has written on technology, both enterprise and consumer, and finance.
