Green Technology

IBM enables its mainframe customers to monitor and understand their data center systems energy consumption in real-time. IBM takes a holistic view of the energy envelope, considering power for operating the computers and cooling the data center. The company is also being open about typical operating energy consumption, using field data to generate a power efficiency index, like fuel efficiency in cars. ...

... "Here's how the metering system works: the new IBM solution monitors a mainframe's actual energy and cooling statistics (collected by internal sensors); and presents them in real time on the System Activity Display. With this system, a user can now correlate the energy consumed with work actually performed. When the machine reports its maintenance health on a weekly basis, the power statistics may be used. These statistics can be observed real time or also summarized for project or trend analysis. Energy consumption statistics are used for demonstrating cost savings toward electric rebates and programs to reduce data center energy consumption. A Power Estimator Tool is also available for future planning. It calculates how changes in system configurations and workloads can affect the entire energy envelope - including the power needed to both run and cool the machines. " ...