Overview
ISO/IEC TR 30132-1:2016 - Information technology sustainability: Energy efficient computing models - Part 1 provides guidelines for energy effectiveness evaluation of computing models. The technical report defines a simplified reference computing model (client devices, network equipment, data centre equipment) and recommends a holistic, end-to-end approach for evaluating the amount of data transferred, processed and stored per unit energy - referred to as energy effectiveness.
Key topics and guidance
- Reference computing model
- A generic, high-level model covering client devices, access/metro/core networks and data centres to support end-to-end energy evaluation.
- Focuses on transport and network-layer equipment, client endpoints (including mobile and IoT) and data centre servers/storage.
- Holistic framework
- Guidance on evaluating applicability of energy-effectiveness improving technologies across multiple systems and services rather than single components.
- Encourages assessment of end-to-end data flows (creation, processing, storage, sharing, consumption).
- Energy effectiveness definition and scope
- Defines energy effectiveness as the end-to-end total data (transferred/processed/stored) per unit energy for a computing model.
- Recommends identifying all energy-consuming components and leveraging manufacturers’ energy-state data (idle, active, full) for network modelling.
- Evaluation guidelines and assumptions
- Practical assumptions for simplified evaluations (data-oriented scenarios, synchronization and service patterns).
- Includes informative annexes: state-of-affairs for improving energy effectiveness and a survey template for component power calculations (Annex B).
Practical applications and target users
- Who uses it:
- ICT architects and systems engineers designing energy-aware services
- Data centre operators and network planners assessing end-to-end energy impact
- Sustainability officers, researchers and product teams evaluating energy-saving technologies
- Practical uses:
- Baseline energy-effectiveness assessments for cloud/mobile/IoT services
- Comparing architectural options (edge vs. cloud, caching/synchronization strategies)
- Input into procurement, capacity planning and carbon/energy reporting frameworks
Related standards
- Part of the ISO/IEC 30132 series (other parts cover complementary topics)
- Uses terminology from ISO/IEC 13273-1 (referenced in the report)
Keywords: ISO/IEC TR 30132-1:2016, energy effectiveness, energy efficient computing, reference computing model, end-to-end energy evaluation, ICT sustainability, data centre energy, network energy modeling.