A data center on Cisco's San Jose campus occupies 7,000 square feet and is filled with 3202 units of IT equipment, drawing 770 kW. There is 1 MW of total power available and 820 kW of cooling capacity. The total energy bill for the facility was originally $1.4 million per year, including $660,000 per year in cooling energy costs and $707,000 per year in IT equipment energy costs. The facility has been in operation since 1999 with limited considerations for efficient operations.

A team led by Chris Noland, Engineering Manager for Cisco, employed two techniques in parallel to improve energy efficiency. This first was a familiar set of best practices that include blanking panels and plastic curtains to prevent mixing of supply and return air. Note was taken by Noland's team of two major limitations of best practices. Firstly, best practices offer no foresight of outcome and Noland wanted a return on investment estimate in advance to justify the required expenditure. Secondly, best practices are designed to address room-level efficiency issues. In most data centers, efficiency problems are more likely to be caused by thermal incompatibilities between IT equipment and cabinets than they are by flawed room designs.