How SDEA Drives Sustainable Efficiencies for Data Centres
The Swiss Datacenter Efficiency Association, or SDEA, is a pioneering non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing sustainability in data centre operations.
Its mission is to bring transparency to how data centres consume energy and use its resources efficiently. Through this, SDEA helps data centres ensure their operations are sustainable and optimised - which is particularly important, given the rate of global digital transformation and how much energy this inevitably consumes.
As AI and 5G technologies continue to drive increasing data centre demands, SDEA’s work is becoming increasingly critical. The organisation’s President, Babak Falsafi, sat down exclusively with Data Centre Magazine to share how SDEA provides tools to measure and maximise energy efficiency across a data centre’s IT stack.
He shares how tools like the SDEA Navigator help operators improve their energy efficiency and encourage greater transparency across a data centre.
Please introduce yourself and your role at SDEA.
I hold a PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and have worked on multiprocessor architecture, memory systems and server networking since 1990.
I began my career at Purdue and later became a full professor at Carnegie Mellon in 2008. That same year, I joined EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) and founded EcoCloud, a research center pioneering post-Moore data centre technologies, including algorithms, cooling and power distribution.
Our team includes project manager Matthias Haymoz, who coordinates the association’s activities and volunteers, including founding board members from academia and industry, along with technical experts dedicated to sustainable data centre operations.
My role is to work closely with the team to achieve SDEA's mission and represent the organisation at global venues related to data centre infrastructure and IT.
What are some of your main challenges at SDEA? What actions do you take to support your team?
As President, I try to foster a collaborative environment and ensure that our mission of driving energy efficiency and sustainability is reflected in all our initiatives. In addition to the points mentioned, I support the team by fostering partnerships with industry and academia to advance our work.
We face both marketing and technology challenges. Many in the market rely on renewable energy certificates to offset emissions, so we focus on raising awareness and explaining the need to quantify emissions.
With various standards for sustainable data centre operations, we make a clear case for how our KPIs fill critical gaps by precisely measuring efficiency and emissions – and not just endorsing sustainability.
Another emerging challenge is measuring IT efficiency. We are working with a leading IT monitoring company, Checkmk, to develop a turnkey solution for IT customers to measure our KPIs.
Tell us about SDEA’s unique online efficiency calculators for data centres.
The SDEA Navigator is an innovative online tool that allows data centre or IT infrastructure operators to measure and track the full-stack efficiency of their operations.
By full-stack efficiency, we mean the efficiency of the data centre infrastructure (power and cooling systems, lighting, on-premise renewables, or heat recycling) on the one hand, and the efficiency of the IT infrastructure (utilisation, technology excellence, operating temperature classification) on the other. We also provide a CO2 calculator that allows clients to measure the carbon footprint of the energy they use.
How do they measure and quantify IT efficiency?
The SDEA Navigator assesses IT efficiency through a detailed evaluation of servers, storage and network. The IT Infrastructure efficiency Index (ITIE) measures key aspects such as CPU or GPU utilisation, used storage capacities, or network traffic load – but also rewards efficient technology (e.g., flash vs disk, fibre vs. copper) or components with a higher operating temperature classification.
By providing a granular breakdown of these efficiencies, the Navigator enables IT operators to pinpoint inefficiencies and optimise resource use.
What does 2025 hold for SDEA?
Looking ahead to 2025, we aim to expand our reach both in Switzerland and globally, ensuring that data centre operators worldwide can meet the growing sustainability demands of regulators, clients and investors.
We anticipate a continued increase in demand for data centres as technologies like AI, 5G and IoT evolve. With that growth also comes a significant responsibility to manage energy consumption and emissions effectively.
That is why we're continuously trying to develop our offering further – for example, a working group is currently working on developing special KPIs for AI efficiency.
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