SPEC seeks testers for Server Efficiency Rating Tool beta

SERT measurement and reporting will be required by EPA’s ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0

GAINESVILLE, Va., June 12, 2012 – The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has released a second beta version of the Server Efficiency Rating Tool (SERT) for public testing and comment. Measurement and reporting via the SERT will be required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0 specification, and is anticipated to be used by other national regulatory organizations around the world.

Improvements from Beta-1 of SERT include a refined workload that provides more consistent results, better hardware and software identification, and an enhanced graphical user interface to simplify running tests and reporting results.

SPEC seeks testers

SERT Beta-2 testing is open to anyone who has a SPEC-accepted power analyzer and temperature sensor, signs a beta license, and commits to providing feedback.

"We are seeking a wide, diverse range of end users to test SERT Beta-2 and help us ensure its end-to-end stability," says Klaus-Dieter Lange, SPECpower committee chair.

SERT represents a major step forward for ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0, according to Robert Meyers, ENERGY STAR’s data center products lead.

"The EPA is excited by SERT’s ability to provide a consistent measure of energy efficiency based on a wide range of workloads for the latest generation of compute servers," says Meyers. "We encourage our stakeholders to exercise SERT Beta-2 to help SPEC create a finished product that will benefit customers from around the globe."

A rating tool, not a benchmark

Although based on the extensive experience from ongoing development of SPECpower_ssj2008, SERT is not a comparative benchmark and does not provide a composite power/performance score. Instead, it produces detailed information about the influence of CPU, memory and storage I/O configurations on the power efficiency of servers.

Wide adoption of the SERT will reduce testing burdens on the server industry and enable more meaningful and consistent comparisons among products sold in different regions of the world.

Cooperative development

The SPECpower committee developing SERT includes representatives from AMD, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft, with veteran SPEC benchmark developers Greg Darnell, Alan Adamson and post-graduate researcher Christian Koopmann as supporting contributors. The EPA provides regular high-level policy and directional guidance to the SPECpower committee, and other organizations around the world continue to provide input and feedback.

More information and sign up

The ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0 specification is expected to be completed in mid-2012 and will go into effect in early 2013. To obtain the ENERGY STAR label, a server must satisfy a set of criteria, one of which will be to submit the results measured by the SERT.

Visit www.spec.org/sert/ for more information and to sign up for the SERT Beta-2 program.

About SPEC

SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains and endorses standardized benchmarks to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises 130 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.

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Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

SPEC seeks testers for Server Efficiency Rating Tool beta

SERT measurement and reporting will be required by EPA’s ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0