Measuring and analyzing the energy use of enterprise computing systems

Until now, green computing research has largely relied on few, short-term power measurements to characterize the energy use of enterprise computing. This paper brings new and comprehensive power datasets through Powernet, a hybrid sensor network that monitors the power and utilization of the IT systems in a large academic building. Over more than two years, we have collected power data from 250+ individual computing devices and have monitored a subset of CPU and network loads. This dense, long-term monitoring allows us to extrapolate the data to a detailed breakdown of electricity use across the building's computing systems.