The development of the digital economy has led to an increasing demand for data supported by the continuing construction, across Europe, of data centres of all sizes serving a large variety of business applications. This has resulted in increased energy demand. It is necessary to manage this demand and to consider the related environmental and economic impacts.
A data centre encompasses a great variety of products and systems. Many different industries are involved in the design and the operation of a data centre. Within the framework of the complicated and challenging objective to manage energy consumption there is a need to give guidance to stakeholders in the industry for energy management and environmental viability by providing a foundation of standards on data centres.
Over the last years, all European Standardization Organizations (ESOs) have been involved in developing standards related to data centres. In 2010 CENELEC BT/WG 132-3 made the recommendation to establish a joint European coordination group with the task to manage and coordinate European activities and standardization works related to data centres energy efficiency.
The CEN/CENELEC/ETSI Coordination Group on Green Data Centres (CEN/CLC/ETSI CG GDC) is a joint activity of the three ESOs which comprises representatives of the ESOs together with stakeholders of industry and EU projects.
The Coordination Group has developed and maintains two documents.
The Review of standardization activities Energy Management and Environmental Viability of Data Centres summarizes the current standardization landscape and references the relevant standards, both published and in preparation, in relation to data centres energy management within three ESOs. This publication is mainly targeted to management executives of data centre industries, data centre operators and data centre planers.
The Standardization landscape for the energy management and environmental viability of data centres is an in-depth analysis of standardization activities relevant for data centre design and operation, as well as systems and products installed in data centres. This publication is recommended to those readers who want to get a more detailed insight into current standardization projects both within the three ESOs, both also reaching out to related international activities in ISO/IEC and ITU.
