The draft report on policy scenarios (task 7) for the EcoDesign (ErP) Directive lot 9 review on enterprise servers and data equipment was published in June 2015. The report emphasizes the same challenges that have been discussed throughout the lot 9 review – the difficulty in characterizing and specifying environment performance requirements of computer servers given the large variation in configuration, applications, and operating conditions.

Scope
The draft report included enterprise servers and enterprise storage within its scope, but excludes networking equipment because of the large variation in equipment. The report recommends that a future preparatory study should investigate networking equipment.

For the scope of enterprise servers, the report indicated that it is not excluding specific types of enterprise servers, such as server appliances, but does provide a caution to the European Commission… “However, it is strongly recommended to check the technical, economical and operational feasibility of particular eco-design measures for these products due to the fact that they could be custom made and utilized for high available or mission critical computing processes.”

Policy Recommendations
Five general policy measures and several sub measures were identified; however, there were few detailed technical recommendations other than the usual power supply efficiency which is also specified by U.S. Energy Star. The general policy measures and sub measures presented for further analysis and consideration by the European Commission are:

1.5.1. Product information before and during the operation

1.5.1.1. Active State Information Criteria
1.5.1.2. Idle State Information Criteria
1.5.1.3. Energy proportional design / Dynamic Range

1.5.2. Product hardware components and configuration

1.5.2.1. Power Supply Efficiency
1.5.2.2. Reduction of Idle Power

1.5.3. Energy requirement on the overall energy performance
1.5.4. Product software components and configuration
1.5.5. Product operating conditions and energy management

1.5.6. Resource efficiency requirements

1.5.6.1. Requirements on dismantling, re-use and recycling
1.5.6.1. Requirements for technical documentation
1.5.6.1. Critical raw material (CRM) voluntary declaration
1.5.6.1. Energy consumption of servers and storage with reused components

1.5.7. Energy labelling

Minimizing idle state power has been a common requirement in many other Eco-design implementing measures (regulations). However, for enterprise servers the report recognizes that optimizing idle power could result in an overall negative environment impact.

Low idle power is easier to meet in low performance servers than in high performance servers that are optimized for performance per Watt at high usage levels. Enterprise servers (if configured efficiently using virtualization, etc.) tend to have high usage levels and are not often in an idle state. Therefore, mandating low idle power could result in purchasing of more low performance servers versus fewer high performance servers.

The current challenge in specifying practical requirements for Enterprise servers is epitomized by the statement in subsection 1.5.3. (Energy requirement on the overall energy performance) that reads

“The Lot 9 study recommends that in case reliable measurement methods will permit to provide a quantitative ranking between products in the future, specific requirements on the overall energy performance could be envisaged.”