Data Center Energy Management: Software vs Sensors

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

 delicious  

  

Jeff St. John’s recent article on data center energy management "Software, Sensors, Partners Drive Greener Data Centers" is one of several new articles that go beyond the fluff and provide a more detailed evaluation of the data center energy management solutions on the market.

St. John divides the data center energy management market into three areas: software-based, sensor-based, and a mix of software and sensors.   Viridity Software is correctly listed as a software-only approach. This is an approach we pioneered and are very proud of.

The co-founders of Viridity Software visited over one hundred data centers to talk to managers about their energy efficiency challenges before designing our Viridity EnergyCenter software. They learned that for many, the cost of power was exceeding capital expenses (CAPEX) and that there wasn’t a reasonable way to figure out exactly how much power the data center was using or when it might run out of power completely — certainly at the rack or IT device level.

The biggest problem was getting actionable insight into data center power consumption and utilization. They decided to bring a software approach to the problem and developed an agentless, low touch, highly effective way to gather information about how networked equipment was consuming power and being utilized.

Viridity EnergyCenter software uses a combination of discovery (via standard protocols), test data, and evolving real time modeling to deliver accurate, reliable information so that companies can gain energy consumption and utilization information specific to their data center down to each IT device. This insight is being used to drive and quantify the:

• Decision to deploy a tech refresh or extend a 3-year or 5-year amortization to 6+ years
• Power consumption intelligence for server virtualization/consolidation projects
• Optimal locations for placing new equipment across the data center based on power, cooling, and space needs
• Identification of non-productive assets in order to put them to better use or retire them
• Extra power, cooling, and space capacity previously missed due to over-provisioning

We find it encouraging that there are several approaches that are emerging in the industry to address energy management challenges in the data center head on.  We hear from our customers that Viridity’s software-only approach helps them rationalize data center’s energy productivity quickly and effectively.  Often, data center managers have inherited new data centers through mergers and acquisitions and they need to understand what assets in those data centers are effective and what capacity (power, cooling, and space) is needed to assimilate those IT assets into the new company.  Sensors, in this case, are not practical.