by Shane Henson — December 16, 2013—Future Facilities Inc., a provider of data center design and operational management software, recently launched its ACE Data Center Performance Assessment Service, a new offering to assess and visualize three critical indicators of data center performance: availability, capacity and efficiency.
According to the company, it developed the service as a new way to assess and visualize the performance state of data centers and to help operators get to where they need to go to close the performance gap.
As Future Facilities notes, every data center faces roadmap changes. Each change has the potential to chip away at one or more of the interconnected performance indicators. Successful data center operation is about winning the battle against change by planning changes from a known performance baseline.
The ACE Data Center Performance Assessment Service offers a new way of assessing and visualizing the three critical indicators of a data center’s performance: availability, capacity and efficiency.
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ACE Assessment starts with the creation of a predictive model (Virtual Facility) of the data center using 6SigmaDC software. The Virtual Facility is then used to calculate the following performance indicators:
- Availability: Percent of existing connected information technology (IT) load that will always be available under what-if power and cooling failure conditions;
- Capacity: Percent of the design IT load that can be achieved by adding to the present day layout; and
- Efficiency: The effectiveness of airflow and temperature delivery (compared to ASHRAE standards).
Future Facilities says that in 2011, using the tools of the ACE Assessment Service, it was able to help a global investment bank increase availability to 100 percent, reclaim 350 kilowatts of lost capacity, and realize a 15 percent drop in power usage effectiveness.
