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Sustainability Settings

MetricsHub enriches hardware monitoring data with energy usage metrics such as hw.host.energy, hw.host.heating_margin, and hw.host.power. These metrics enable accurate estimates of electricity costs and carbon emissions for your sites and the resources they host.

To calculate these electricity costs and carbon emissions:

  1. Define the site attribute
  2. Set the carbon intensity, electricity cost, and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) .

Step 1: Configure the site Attribute​

The site attribute allows dashboards to report electricity costs and carbon footprint per site (for example, per data center, server room, or geographic location).

Configuration differs depending on whether your infrastructure is:

For Highly Distributed Infrastructure​

Define the site attribute under the attributes section of each resourceGroups entry.

resourceGroups:
  RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME:
    attributes:
      site: SITE_NAME
    resources:
      RESOURCE_ID:
        attributes:
          host.name: HOSTNAME
          host.type: TYPE
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION

Example:

resourceGroups:
  boston:
    attributes:
      site: boston
    resources:
      myBostonHost1:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-boston-host-01
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
      myBostonHost2:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-boston-host-02
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
  chicago:
    attributes:
      site: chicago
    resources:
      myChicagoHost1:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-chicago-host-01
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
      myChicagoHost2:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-chicago-host-02
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION

For Centralized Infrastructure​

If all monitored resources belong to the same site, define the site attribute once in the main attributes section:

attributes:
  site: CENTRAL_SITE

resources:
  myCentralHost1:
    attributes:
      host.name: my-central-host-01
      host.type: storage
    PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
  myCentralHost2:
    attributes:
      host.name: my-central-host-02
      host.type: storage
    PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION

Step 2: Configure Sustainability Metrics​

Sustainability metrics define the environmental and economic parameters used to calculate electricity costs and carbon emissions.

Place this configuration:

  • inside each resource group for distributed infrastructures
  • in the main metrics section for centralized infrastructure:
metrics:
  hw.site.carbon_intensity: 230 # in g/kWh
  hw.site.electricity_cost: 0.12 # in $/kWh
  hw.site.pue: 1.8
  • hw.site.carbon_intensity is the carbon intensity in grams per kiloWatthour. This information is required to calculate the carbon emissions of your site. The carbon intensity corresponds to the amount of CO₂ emissions produced per kWh of electricity and varies depending on the country and the region where the data center is located. See the electricityMap Web site for reference.
  • hw.site.electricity_cost is the electricity price in the currency of your choice per kiloWattHour. This information is required to calculate the energy cost of your site. Refer to your energy contract to know the tariff by kilowatt per hour charged by your supplier or refer to the GlobalPetrolPrices Web site. Make sure to always use the same currency for all instances of MetricsHub on all sites to allow cost aggregation in your dashboards that cover multiple sites.
  • hw.site.pue is the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of your site. By default, sites are set with a PUE of 1.8, which is the average value for typical data centers.

You can either hardcode a value or configure MetricsHub to retrieve that information.

Example for Distributed Infrastructure​

resourceGroups:
  boston:
    attributes:
      site: boston
    metrics:
      hw.site.carbon_intensity: 230 # in g/kWh
      hw.site.electricity_cost: 0.12 # in $/kWh
      hw.site.pue: 1.8
    resources:
      myBostonHost1:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-boston-host-01
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
      myBostonHost2:
        attributes:
          host.name: my-boston-host-02
          host.type: storage
        PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION

Example for Centralized Infrastructure​

attributes:
  site: CENTRAL_SITE
metrics:
  hw.site.carbon_intensity: 230 # in g/kWh
  hw.site.electricity_cost: 0.12 # in $/kWh
  hw.site.pue: 1.8
resources:
  myCentralHost1:
    attributes:
      host.name: my-central-host-01
      host.type: storage
    PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION
  myCentralHost2:
    attributes:
      host.name: my-central-host-02
      host.type: storage
    PROTOCOL_CONFIGURATION