Abstract for: A System Dynamics Perspective on Applying a New Energy Efficiency Metric for Data Centers

This paper explores the dynamics of energy reduction policy setting for data centers in the face of new metrics and related regulation. With these new metrics there is a potential for management to establish policies that achieve the specific metric target while sub-optimizing the total energy reduction opportunity. This paper will address the question of whether new insight can be gained by using a system dynamics approach versus static return on investment forecasting. The first part of this paper will describe the unique dynamics of energy consumption in a data center and the application of one particular metric used to indicate energy consumption efficiency. The second part of this paper proposes a model that represents the interconnected behavior of data center energy consumption and metric based policy implementation. This approach is compared to static methods and the insights gained from taking a systems approach.