Data centers represent today's major energy consumers. This is especially true in the Netherlands, informally called "the data center country" for Amsterdam includes 33% of the data centers of the whole European Union. To address this problem, the Dutch Government initiated the MJA (Meerjarenafspraken, or in English multiannual agreements), a nationwide initiative intended to improve energy efficiency of ICT products, services and processes. Major energy consumers, like data centers, actively participate in the MJA initiative to lower and optimize their energy consumption. To this end, the MJA members have documented the green ICT practices developed so far. The resulting documentation consists of an excel sheet of 83 consolidated practices. As a way to formalize, classify and share green practices, in our previous work we have proposed a green strategy model and have mapped the MJA practices accordingly. In this way we made explicit the fundamental knowledge elements of a green practice, namely the MJA green goals, green practices, and practice's effects. In this work, we take a further step into the content of the codified practices, by: i) classifying the practices based on the concerns they address, ii) looking into the goals that data centers intend to achieve in relation to the concerns that practices address, iii) classifying the practices based on the role that IT plays, and iv) distinguishing practices that are software-related from non-software related ones. In this way, we provide a picture of how data centers currently address the problem of reducing their energy footprint, possibly offering inspiration to both researchers (in progressing in their research further from what already exists), and practitioners (in reusing practices and learning what knowledge elements are important for informed decision making). © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

A categorization of green practices used by Dutch data centers

Muccini, Henry;POTENZA, SIMONE
2013-01-01

Abstract

Data centers represent today's major energy consumers. This is especially true in the Netherlands, informally called "the data center country" for Amsterdam includes 33% of the data centers of the whole European Union. To address this problem, the Dutch Government initiated the MJA (Meerjarenafspraken, or in English multiannual agreements), a nationwide initiative intended to improve energy efficiency of ICT products, services and processes. Major energy consumers, like data centers, actively participate in the MJA initiative to lower and optimize their energy consumption. To this end, the MJA members have documented the green ICT practices developed so far. The resulting documentation consists of an excel sheet of 83 consolidated practices. As a way to formalize, classify and share green practices, in our previous work we have proposed a green strategy model and have mapped the MJA practices accordingly. In this way we made explicit the fundamental knowledge elements of a green practice, namely the MJA green goals, green practices, and practice's effects. In this work, we take a further step into the content of the codified practices, by: i) classifying the practices based on the concerns they address, ii) looking into the goals that data centers intend to achieve in relation to the concerns that practices address, iii) classifying the practices based on the role that IT plays, and iv) distinguishing practices that are software-related from non-software related ones. In this way, we provide a picture of how data centers currently address the problem of reducing their energy footprint, possibly offering inspiration to both researchers (in progressing in their research further from what already exists), and practitioners (in reusing practices and learning what knowledge elements are important for informed decision making). © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/119364
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