How FU2 (Renting a dedicated server for 1 month) works
Introduction
The second Functional Unit is defined as “Provide a physical server hosted in a data centre with a giver computing capacity”.
It is dependent on the data center’s impacts as calculated through the first Functional Unit. According to a given server configuration (a number of CPU, a quantity of RAM and a storage capacity), the functional unit will compute the environmental impacts of renting a dedicated server for one month.
For assessing the environmental impacts of the physical server, external data has to be queried and used in computing the second Functional Unit impacts. This is made possible by BoaviztAPI. At the moment, DCFootprint is using the environmental impacts for an average, middle-sized server with 2 CPUs, 32 GB of RAM and 1000 GB of SSD storage.
Version 1
The first version of the second Functional Unit does not include the environmental impacts of the mutualised equipment in the data center, which is network equipment. This is due to the lack of open data for assessing the environmental impacts of this kind of material, and the necessity of taking more research time to make this data available.
Life Cycle coverage and respect of norms
| Environmental display - Life Cycle stage | ITU L.1410 - Life Cycle stage | Coverage in Ademe Cloud & DC PCR | Coverage in DCFootprint’s Functional Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | Raw materials extraction | Mandatory | ✅ see the methodology section for details |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | Raw materials processing | Mandatory | ✅ see the methodology section for details |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | IT equipment production - Component production | Mandatory | ✅ see the methodology section for details |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | IT equipment production - Assembly | Mandatory | ✅ see the methodology section for details |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | IT equipment production - Support activities of IT equipment manufacturers | Excluded from this functional unit | Excluded |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | Support goods manufacturing | Mandatory | See FU1 for details |
| 🏗️ Manufacturing | Construction of ICT specific site | Mandatory | See FU1 for details |
| 🚚 Distribution | Mandatory | Partially included | |
| 🔧 Installation | Optional | Partially included | |
| ⚡ Use | IT equipment use | Mandatory | ✅ see the methodology section for details |
| ⚡ Use | Support goods use | Mandatory | See FU1 for details |
| ⚡ Use | Operator support activities | Optional | See FU1 for details |
| ⚡ Use | Service provider support activites | Excluded | Excluded |
| 🗑️ End of life | Preparation of ICT equipment for reuse | Mandatory | Partially included |
| 🗑️ End of life | Storage / Disassembly / Dismantling / Shreding | Mandatory | Partially included |
Methodology
FU2Impacts(ComputingCapacity, StudyDuration) = BuildingTechnicalEnvironmentImpacts + ITEquipmentImpacts
With:
StudyDuration: the study duration, which is one month for the second Functional Unit.
BuildingTechnicalEnvironmentImpacts: the environmental impacts of the data center’s building and technical environment.
ITEquipmentImpacts: the environmental impacts of the IT equipment of the physical server.
Building and technical environment
BuildingTechnicalEnvironmentImpacts = StudyDuration * AveragePower * RelevantFU1Impacts
With:
StudyDuration: the study duration, which is one month for the second Functional Unit.
AveragePower: the average power consumed by the server. At the moment, this value comes from BoaviztAPI, for a middle-sized average server.
RelevantFU1Impacts: the impacts calculated through the first Functional Unit, the renting of a rack of servers for 1 kiloWatt of power, for the equipment category manufacturing impacts (see the FU1 methodology).
IT equipment
For IT equipment impacts, the data has to come from an external source. As a default configuration, an average middle-sized server impacts, available through BoaviztAPI, has been selected for computing the second Functional Unit impacts in the first version of DCFootprint.
Manufacturing
ITEquipmentImpacts = (StudyDuration / EquipmentLifespan) * ServerImpacts
With:
ServerImpacts: the impacts for an average, middle-sized server, as computed by BoaviztAPI.
StudyDuration: the study duration, which is one month for the second Functional Unit.
EquipmentLifespan: the lifespan of the physical server, until its discarding.
Use
FU2Impacts(ComputingCapacity, StudyDuration) = StudyDuration * AveragePower * EnergyMixImpact
With:
StudyDuration: the study duration, which is one month for the second Functional Unit.
AveragePower: the average power consumed by the server. At the moment, this value comes from BoaviztAPI, for a middle-sized average server.
EnergyMixImpact: the environmental impact of the local energy mix, according to the location provided as a parameter.
Version 2
The next version of the second Functional Unit should use the mutualised equipment environmental impacts and compute them along with the first Functional Unit impacts.
It will also allow to provide a specific server configuration. Its environmental impacts would then be computed through BoaviztAPI, and used in the second Functional Unit impacts.
Future versions
Depending on future releases of BoaviztAPI, transport and end-of-life impacts for IT equipment could be included.