SERT® Suite

The SERT® standard was created by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC), the world's leading organization for benchmarking expertise. The SPECpower Committee designed, implemented, and delivered the SERT suite, a next-generation tool set for measuring and evaluating the energy efficiency of servers. The SERT suite was created with the input from leaders of various global energy-efficiency programs and their stakeholders in order to accommodate their regional program requirements, as well as provide both summarized and detailed reports for use by potential customers.

Versions

Please check with individual agencies to determine which version is required for specific regulation.

The SERT 1 Suite
The SERT 2 Suite
The SERT 3 Suite

Regulatory Adoption

On June 15th, 2021 SPEC released a new ISO-compliant version of the SERT suite, which forms the core of the ISO/IEC 21836:2020 standard. This next-generation measurement standard was designed in collaboration with leaders of global energy-efficiency regulatory programs. The SERT 2.0.4 Suite supports certification of the latest ARM, Power, and x86 architectures driving global regulatory energy goals.

In a memo published March 29th, 2019, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) indicated they had accepted a shift in computer server energy conservation standard that takes into account the whole server rather than simply the CPU. The SERT suite version 2 is the metric chosen by METI to demonstrate performance per watt for computer servers in this geography.

On March 15th, 2019, the Official Journal of the European Union indicated that member states elected to adopt server and data storage product Lot9 Ecodesign Regulation (EU) 2019/424. This regulation went into effect March 1st, 2020, with the SERT suite version 2 being the metric of choice for active and idle state server efficiency calculations on products within the scope of this regulation.

A significant milestone was achieved on September 17, 2018, as the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the final version of the "ENERGY STAR Version 3.0 Computer Servers Program Requirements" which defines the Active State Efficiency Thresholds that will determine ENERGY STAR eligibility effective June 17, 2019. The new thresholds have been determined using data collected by running the SERT suite.

Press Releases

Press release material, documents, and announcements:

The SERT 2.0.4 Suite Release Announcement (June 2021)

U.S. EPA adopts the SPEC SERT suite (December 2018)

The SERT 2.0.1 Suite Release Announcement (January 2018)

The SERT 2 Suite Release Announcement (March 2017)

Related Publications