Assessing the energy efficiency of data centers

Today, developments in mobile and cloud technology increase the importance of data storage. The increase in data storage also causes an increase in data centers. Data centers are centers where organizations operating in the field of information technologies can store, process and distribute their data. The security and sustainability of these centers, where many servers are located, are of great importance for organizations. Even a short power outage in these centers can cause many operations to stop and data losses that are difficult to compensate. Therefore, data centers must be in a position to serve 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Data centers, which are increasing in number in our country and around the world, pose a great threat to energy consumption in cities due to their high energy needs. In today's world, where energy, especially electrical energy, is extremely important, the excessive amount of energy consumed by these centers has been the subject of many researches recently, and a great effort is being made to solve this problem. Due to this problem, a new field of study called 'Data Center Efficiency' has emerged. With the industrial revolutions, energy resources have become an important problem to be solved for all countries. Countries have searched for different energy sources to overcome this problem. In this context, renewable energy sources are seen as an important alternative for countries. As renewable energy sources; hydroelectric, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal energy can be given as examples. Renewable energy sources have many advantages. The most important of these advantages is that their cost is low and they are difficult to run out compared to other energy sources. In addition, the harm to the environment and the health of the people who use it is extremely low. It is known that countries that have their own energy resources and do not depend on foreign sources in terms of energy are in an advantageous position. Turkey is an extremely rich country in terms of having both underground energy resources and renewable energy resources. But no resource is unlimited. Therefore, available resources should be used economically. In this study; The components of data centers are explained, what is considered while designing the data center is explained, and it is tried to draw attention to the energy efficiency of data centers. Total facility power, information technology equipment power, cooling capacity and total CO2 amount information were collected from 18 data centers operating in Turkey. Using this information, the energy efficiency values and power usage efficiency of these data centers were calculated. Data centers are classified according to their energy efficiency and power usage. In addition, suggestions have been made to increase the energy efficiency of data centers. It is thought that it will make an important contribution to the literature, since there has not been a study similar to this thesis study.