Viridity EnergyCenter can help discover IT inefficiencies

Industry analysis by Beth Schultz, plus the latest news headlines.

Eking out efficiencies from the IT infrastructure remains a top priority for enterprises of all sizes. Yet a big divide often still stands between the IT managers overseeing the energy-guzzling gear and the facilities professionals responsible for the data center site overall.

If that's the case at your organization, bringing energy resource management software into your tools portfolio could help. As Mike Rowan, CTO of Viridity Software, said in a recent Webinar, with such software, "Everyone gets actionable information to do their jobs better together."

What does a real green data center look like?

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Eking out efficiencies from the IT infrastructure remains a top priority for enterprises of all sizes. Yet a big divide often still stands between the IT managers overseeing the energy-guzzling gear and the facilities professionals responsible for the data center site overall.

If that's the case at your organization, bringing energy resource management software into your tools portfolio could help. As Mike Rowan, CTO of Viridity Software, said in a recent Webinar, with such software, "Everyone gets actionable information to do their jobs better together."

What does a real green data center look like?

Viridity EnergyCenter software, featured recently as one of the top 10 tools for the new data center, connects equipment utilization and power consumption data so that IT and facilities managers get the information they need to improve efficiencies. The software examines how applications consume energy -- and then recommends how to eliminate inefficiencies.

The software uses a combination of discovery (via standard protocols), test data and evolving real-time modeling to deliver information on how each networked device is consuming energy and is being utilized, Rowan described. It does not require wiring sensors or other additional hardware -- mjwhich means the method for helping solve the energy management challenge doesn't require powering up new devices itself.

What's more, it gathers information continuously, giving you greater opportunity to spot trends in power usage and utilization. "Taking a snapshot won't work because you won't be able to see when servers have spikes in workload unless you capture data at the right moment," Rowan said.

Once you can see which servers, for example, are consuming the most power, you can make better informed decisions about your IT gear. You can use the data collected to position the hottest-running servers in the coolest aisles, for example, schedule equipment refreshes based on power inefficiencies or identify the best candidates for removal, consolidation or virtualization, Rowan said.

According to Rowan, early adopters of Viridity EnergyCenter have realized 20% to 40% improvements in data center energy efficiency -- and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Have you incorporated energy resource management into your systems management routine? Tell me how at bschultz5824@gmail.com.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.

Schultz is a longtime IT journalist. You can email her or find her here.