Environmental approach

Since its creation, the MUST mesocentre has integrated an environmental approach into the management of its infrastructure as well as at each stage of its development or transformation.

Fully integrated into the Mechatronics building, its semi-underground location offers good thermal inertia. Nevertheless, the technical team undertakes to monitor the infrastructure of the computer room (thanks to electricity consumption readings and environmental probes) and to act to limit the environmental impacts at all levels.

Equipment purchases are made within the framework of the national Higher Education and Research market, which guarantees compliance with a certain number of requirements in favor of a sustainable approach, promoted by the EcoInfo group of the CNRS (https://ecoinfo.cnrs.fr/), in particular efficient power supplies, compliance with ASHRAE A3 environmental standards, a material warranty period with the possibility of extension to 7 years).

Particular attention is paid to the adjustment of the air conditioning system (temperature, humidity) in the computer room. Raising the operating temperature to around 27 ° C allows a gain in general electricity consumption. A heat recovery module was installed during construction on the chiller and can be used for heating the building. A project to improve energy efficiency provides for the containment of computer cabinets in cold aisles within 2 years. The introduction of outdoor air cooling (free cooling) is a declared desire, undoubtedly a requirement for the future. The correct sizing of the resources that are shared between different communities, laboratories and scientific projects makes it possible to display a platform occupancy rate of around 90%. Energy saving efforts are further achieved by increasing server virtualization and thereby minimizing the number of physical servers.

For 5 years, this set of concrete measures has made it possible to control general electricity consumption at a stable level (around 125 kW) while the computing power and the storage capacity have doubled. The energy efficiency indicator (PUE) defined as the ratio between the total energy consumed at the level of the computer room and the energy consumed by the computer equipment alone is 1.5, which places MUST at a very high level. reasonable.

But the engagement in this area does not end there. On the contrary, it remains a priority for the future.