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4.4.1 Definition
Technical infrastructure refers to all digital equipment used by studios as part of their activities. This dedicated section makes it possible to centralise the management of all equipment, regardless of the studio or the year concerned.
Carbulator allows this equipment to be modelled using two nested levels:
- Hardware inventory: list of all IT equipment (machines, servers, screens, etc.). → This equipment generates carbon emissions for the studio to which it is attached, based on its start and end dates in the inventory.
- Hardware configuration: assembly of equipment previously declared in the inventory. For example, a configuration for a graphic designer workstation may consist of a high-performance workstation and two 24-inch monitors. → A configuration generates carbon emissions for a production when it is used by a work group, based on its duration of use.
Equipment must therefore first be entered into the inventory, and then grouped into configurations in order to be taken into account in the carbon footprint report of a production.
4.4.2 Adding equipment to the inventory
In the Hardware inventory tab, click [+ Add equipment]. Enter the following information:
- Equipment name, e.g. HP Z24 monitor
- Studio to which the equipment is assigned
- Hardware profile corresponding to the equipment, e.g. 24-inch monitor
- Idle and active power consumption of the equipment
- Number of units of this equipment in the inventory
- Whether the equipment was acquired through Leasing or Purchase
- Start and end dates in the inventory
- Total lifespan: the expected lifespan or depreciation period for this type of equipment
- Lifespan already elapsed before purchase: when the equipment is second-hand
4.4.3 Creating a hardware configuration
A hardware configuration is an assembly of equipment previously declared in the inventory.
In the Hardware configuration tab, click on [+ Create a configuration]. A pop-up window appears, allowing you to assemble equipment previously declared in the inventory.
- Give your configuration a clear name, e.g. Admin-Prod workstation
Then add one or more pieces of equipment declared in the inventory. For each item of equipment:
- Group: grouping equipment by type → a detailed explanation is provided later.
- Machine name: the name of the equipment as previously defined in the hardware inventory
- Distribution %: the allocation of equipment within a configuration → a detailed explanation is provided later.
The configuration can then be assigned to a work group for a production.
4.4.4 Demonstration using a common use case
For the workstations used by producers, IT services have defined an “Admin-Prod workstation” package consisting of a laptop and an additional monitor.
- In the Inventory tab, create one entry per piece of equipment
- In the Hardware configuration tab, create a configuration named “Admin-Prod workstation”
- Group: in this case, the configuration is made up of two different types of equipment: a laptop and a monitor. Two groups, A and B, are therefore defined, one for each type of equipment (not to be confused with a work group defined later in the production).
- Distribution %: the proportion of people who benefit from the equipment, relative to the total number of users. In this case, 100% of producers have a laptop and 100% have an additional monitor.
4.4.5 Understanding groups and distribution %
Let us return to the example of the “Admin-Prod workstation” configuration intended for a department of 20 people working in production management.
Exemple 1 Suppose the studio decides to allocate 20 laptops and only 15 additional 24-inch monitors to this department. This means that:
- 100% of users have a laptop (20/20 users)
- 75% of users benefit from an additional 24-inch monitor (15/20 users)
- 25% of users therefore do not have an additional monitor (5/20 users)
The traditional approach would be to create two configurations: one with 15 laptops + 15 monitors, and another with 5 laptops only. It quickly becomes clear that, given the diversity of configurations within a single studio, this approach can become cumbersome if a new configuration has to be created each time one element varies.
To simplify this, Carbulator allows the creation of a single configuration in which the number of identical pieces of equipment can vary (distribution %) depending on the quantity available or allocated.
The concept of distribution % therefore makes it possible to declare that, within the “Admin-Prod workstation” package, only 75% of configurations include an additional monitor alongside the laptop.
Exemple 2
Let us return to the previous configuration and now suppose that the studio decides to allocate additional monitors to the people who do not yet have one. However, these monitors are smaller, at 22 inches. This means that:
- 100% of users have a laptop (20/20 users)
- 75% of users benefit from an additional 24-inch monitor (15/20 users)
- 25% of users benefit from an additional 22-inch monitor (5/20 users)
In this way, studios with a heterogeneous equipment fleet can, for example, create a “Graphic designer workstation” configuration that includes several generations or models of workstations, purchased at different times, without needing to identify which project or department uses which model.