EBay's dashboard measures things that are very specific to its own business.
Some of those metrics include the number of physical servers (52,075 at the end of 2012), its total power load (19.43 megawatts) and the total number of active users (112.3 million). The dashboard also tracks how eBay is doing for several best practices measures advocated by Green Grid: power usage effectiveness, water usage effectiveness and carbon usage effectiveness.
While most companies with data centers are familiar with PUE, the other two metrics are less commonly used.
EBay is using quarterly figures for 2012 as its baseline for improvement. "We already have a highly productive engine, but we know it can get more and more efficient," Nelson said.
If you peek at the dashboard, for example, you'll notice that eBay managed 37,936 transactions per kWh at the end of the first quarter of 2012. But by the end of 2012, it had improved the measure to 50,737 transactions per kWh. During those two same timeframes, it managed to keep its metric tonnes of carbon emitted per server in the 0.45 to 0.46 range.
Here are eBay's three goals for the next 12 months, using DSE to help get there.
- Increase transactions per kWh by 10 percent year over year.
- Reduce cost per transaction by 10 percent year over year.
- Reduce carbon per transaction by 10 percent year over year.
Next page: New measure for technology-centric business?
