A Review of Data Centers Energy Consumption and Reliability Modeling

Enhancing the efficiency and the reliability of the data center are the technical challenges for maintaining the quality of services for the end-users in the data center operation. The energy consumption models of the data center components are pivotal for ensuring the optimal design of the internal facilities and limiting the energy consumption of the data center. The reliability modeling of the data center is also important since the end-user’s satisfaction depends on the availability of the data center services. In this review, the state-of-the-art and the research gaps of data center energy consumption and reliability modeling are identified, which could be beneficial for future research on data center design, planning, and operation. The energy consumption models of the data center components in major load sections i.e., information technology (IT), internal power conditioning system (IPCS), and cooling load section are systematically reviewed and classified, which reveals the advantages and disadvantages of the models for different applications. Based on this analysis and related findings it is concluded that the availability of the model parameters and variables are more important than the accuracy, and the energy consumption models are often necessary for data center reliability studies. Additionally, the lack of research on the IPCS consumption modeling is identified, while the IPCS power losses could cause reliability issues and should be considered with importance for designing the data center. The absence of a review on data center reliability analysis is identified that leads this paper to review the data center reliability assessment aspects, which is needed for ensuring the adaptation of new technologies and equipment in the data center. The state-of-the-art of the reliability indices, reliability models, and methodologies are systematically reviewed in this paper for the first time, where the methodologies are divided into two groups i.e., analytical and simulation-based approaches. There is a lack of research on the data center cooling section reliability analysis and the data center components’ failure data, which are identified as research gaps. In addition, the dependency of different load sections for reliability analysis of the data center is also included that shows the service reliability of the data center is impacted by the IPCS and the cooling section.