A testbed and data yields for studying data center energy efficiency and reliability

Many data centers still adopt low temperature setpoints, resulting in high energy consumption of their cooling systems. In our ongoing research project, we have built a data center testbed consisting of three test rooms hosting servers and network equipment. In particular, the testbed is equipped with cooling, heating, and ventilation systems that are under our full control. Thus, we can operate the testbed in a wide range of server room conditions. The test rooms and servers are instrumented with hardware and software sensors monitoring more than 200 measurement points. An extensive test plan is being executed to collect a large volume of data to understand the impact of environmental conditions on server's computing performance and reliability as well as the energy efficiency of the testbed. The results will provide important guidelines for building and operating energy-efficient data centers. We will work with relevant authorities towards providing the data collected from the testbed to the research communities.