Lack of agreed energy efficiency metrics fuels confusion

With few independent standards to gauge power consumption of IT kit, vendors are making up their own

IBM and HP have become the latest hardware vendors to descend into a row about the relative power consumption of their products as experts reiterated calls for new standards governing how the energy efficiency of IT products is measured.

IBM claims internal testing has shown that its blade servers use less energy than rival HP blades. It said its AMD Opteron-based BladeCenter (LS21) used within the BladeCenter system requires 30 percent less energy when idle than the comparable HP Opteron-based BladeSystem (BL465c) in the HP cClass system. IBM added that its own server uses 18 percent less energy when running at full load. IBM's Xeon-based BladeCenter systems also enjoy similar savings compared to HP models, according to IBM's tests.

However, HP argued that the numbers are not a true “apples-to-apples” comparison. The company claimed IBM's blades have fewer standard features than HP's and that this rendered comparisons misleading. "If IBM were able to match HP blades in this regard, we would be happy to have the HP BladeSystem tested against their best effort by an independent, unbiased and credible third-party, " said a company spokesperson.

The row highlights the need for standardised metrics that will allow customers to easily compare the energy efficiency of rival products, as green IT creeps ever higher up the agenda among corporate buyers.

Speaking at a roundtable on IT energy efficiency hosted by Intel last week, Zoe McMahon, environmental strategies and sustainability manager at HP, admitted there are not enough energy efficiency standards. "There is a need to educate customers about energy efficiency, but an important part of education is giving them a mechanism for comparison," she said.

Karl Deacon, outsourcing chief technology officer at IT services firm Capgemini, said the lack of standards is confusing for customers and that there is a need for a simple labelling system for IT equipment, similar to the traffic light system currently adopted for fridges. He added that greater guidance from government is also needed to help establish credible standards.

But Catriona McAlister, who works for environmental consultancy AEA and is also the UK government's contact point for the US administration's international Energy Star labelling initiative, insisted progress is being made to harmonise different vendors' metrics. She pointed to the widespread industry support for the next version of Energy Star specifications, which will be launched next year. The latest specifications mean PCs and printers will be judged on their energy efficiency when in standby mode, sleep mode and when active but idle. Only the best performing quarter of products that apply will be granted an Energy Star label.

However, similar energy efficiency standards for servers remain a long way off, according to Gordon Graylish of Intel. "Energy Star is great for the client space, but for servers you need metrics that are far more sophisticated," he said. "It is critical that we get harmonised standards soon."

Experts remain confident that such standards will emerge. Standards body ECMA is currently working on a server energy efficiency standard that is expected to be in place by 2009, while leading vendors are also in an arms race to develop their own metrics that they hope will become standards.

"Vendors have realised that claiming you have the most energy efficient product [without citing an independent standard] will quickly wear thin," said Daniel Fleisher of analyst firm IDC. "It'll just take one of the vendors to take a lead with one of the standards bodies and as long as the product gains traction we'll see a breakthrough."