This is the first in a series of articles addressing the challenges faced by Facilities and IT departments when working together to implement energy management solutions. You can see the second article here: Facilities and IT: Learning to Speak the Language
When it comes to implementing Enterprise Energy Management, it is essential to have collaboration between the Facilities and IT groups within an organization. Though these departments deliver different services to the organization, they operate very similarly. Yet they rarely have the opportunity to work with one another. The IT department focuses on delivering compute services to all of the people in the organization, whereas the Facilities department provides management of physical space and power.
Both departments strive to deliver a reliable and stable service to the rest of the enterprise. The energy concerns of each department are different, however. Facilities needs to ensure that costs are kept as low as possible, while still delivering the necessary amount of power to the company. IT is under pressure to deliver ever increasing computing capabilities to the business, while also maintaining service level agreements.
The challenge here lies in the fact that an energy management implementation requires that IT act as a service provider to Facilities, since the Facilities organization is typically the economic benefactor. Facilities hasn't traditionally had the opportunity to work with IT as a service provider, because they generally don't have many projects that require IT for implementation.
In order to begin building a bridge between IT and Facilities, it is important to understand some key differences between these groups.
Some of the key differences between these departments are:
Energy Capacity Planning
When Facilities plans for energy needs, the determination is based on Power Per Square Foot or Power Per User. They typically use a standard power calculation of X watts per square foot, based on office building or data center, etc. or allocation of power per user. This metric allows Facilities to determine the energy needs of a building.
IT generally does not worry about the amount of power needed until or unless they need more.
Device Management
Although building management systems automate many of the larger devices in the facility, the majority of devices in facilities are manually managed.
In IT, there is not a single device that isn’t managed by something. IT typically has thousands of devices to manage, but facilities have hundreds of large devices.
Budget
The network-connected energy management platform is an IT product, but Facilities typically gets the budget relief of any energy savings. In general, IT does not own the energy management budget in the company; Facilities does.
Since energy is provided, managed, and budgeted through Facilities, this department now has to utilize IT as a service organization the same way all of the other business units do. We believe that there is plenty of common ground between these departments, making this an opportunity to for both groups to collaborate on reducing energy consumption and providing a more sustainable IT infrastructure.
Is your company managing energy between these departments? To what degree do you find collaboration between IT and Facilities within your organization? Leave a comment below and tell us how it’s going.
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It's Friday again, and we hope that you're putting your energy to good use before the weekend kicks off! To get you started, here are a few interesting articles we found from around the web, and things we posted on the Green IT Blog.
- The Computerworld Honors Program: A search for new heroes “For over two decades, The Computerworld Honors Program has recognized individuals and organizations that create and use information technology to promote and advance public welfare, contribute to the greater good of society and change the world for the better.”
- Uptime Institute announced the 7th Annual Uptime Institute Symposium: The symposium will be held May 14-17, 2012 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. The theme is Digital Infrastructure Convergence™.
- What do you spend on energy?: A more informed and conscientious energy customer has the ability to reduce their own energy costs, while as a whole helping reduce national energy use.
- Optimizing energy use during the workday: Typical users only use a fraction of the processing power that their PCs actually need to operate during the work day. Before now, not only has this energy waste been left unaddressed, but also largely unrecognized.
- Cisco UCS - Undisputed Computing Success: UCS now boasts 11,000 customers worldwide and an annual run rate of £822m making it the fastest growing product in Cisco’s history.
- Scott Paisley, our Americas Technology Director, will be speaking at the Green IT | Cloud Computing 2.0 Summit: Check out more information about the event here.
- Green Data Center Management: Power Efficiency Solutions with Dell, Intel, and Joulex
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At the top of every article about IT energy reduction, you will read “Turn PCs off at night and on weekends, when they aren’t in use.” Would you be surprised to learn that even when your enterprise’s PCs are in use, they’re wasting up to 30% of the energy being consumed? Typical users only use a fraction of the processing power that their PCs actually need to operate during the work day. Before now, not only has this energy waste been left unaddressed, but also largely unrecognized.
Traditional PC based power management has only looked at energy consumption during nights and weekends. It is quite simplistic: when the user is not there, power the devices off. Microsoft Windows capability has already incorporated a lot of that work for customers, devaluing the need for traditional PC power management. With power policies in Windows and more power efficient equipment that will automatically put itself in an idle mode to reduce power consumption, these devices draw much less energy than ever before. Automated sleep mode, after a defined period of inactivity, helps reduce that energy draw. This type of technology has been used in the data center and in distributed offices for some time. JouleX leverages these inherent features to deliver the ultimate in energy efficiency without affecting the end user experience. We call this capability Load Adaptive Computing.
The value that the JouleX Energy Manager platform provides to this type of distributed office environment is multifaceted. The JEM platform allows you to:
- Manage devices that do not have built in power management capabilities
- Better match a device’s energy consumption by the way the device is used through behavioral analysis called Load Adaptive Computing
- Measure whether or not your devices actually shift to a lowered power state when not in use
- Measure exactly how much energy your company is saving through these existing power management capabilities
That just scratches the surface of JEM’s unique capabilities and their benefits to your enterprise. Not only does JEM take your PC power management to the next level by enabling power management during the active day, but it also extends energy management to other network connected devices that do not have built-in power management capabilities such as monitors, printers, VoIP phones, etc.
The modern PC has hundreds of thousands of times the processing power than the computers that sent the first men to the moon. Our phones have hundreds of times the processing power than the computers that sent the men to the moon. Because of price points and Moore’s Law (every 18 months the processing power doubles at the same price point), we’re getting continually more powerful and capable PCs.
PC manufacturers and operating system vendors have developed policies that can make PCs more energy efficient. JouleX leverages those policies to dynamically adjust processor performance levels based upon how that pc is being utilized. If a PC is under heavy utilization, JEM will allow the PC to continue operating at full speed. But if, over time, monitoring shows that the PC has light or little utilization, you can enable JEM to adjust the power consumption ratio of that PC lower. This can save up to 30% of the machine’s energy without impacting the user experience.
The combination of Load Adaptive Computing and location based policy drives efficiency in the workspace by not only understanding how devices are being utilized, but also knowing WHEN devices are in use and adjusting performance and power respectively.
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
We recently announced JouleX’s inclusion in the Computerworld Honors Program. Knowing that the stated mission of this long standing program is “A Search for New Heroes”, this recognition is both humbling and exhilarating for all of us here at JouleX.While we would stop short of calling ourselves heroes, we do look forward to continuing our groundbreaking work in Enterprise Energy Management.
Our president and CEO, Tom Noonan, shared his thoughts about the award: “At JouleX, we are proud to play a vital role in providing organizations around the world with the visibility and analysis required to help them control their energy management across the enterprise and, ultimately, decrease energy consumption, support corporate sustainability initiatives, and reduce overall operating expenses. To have our JouleX Energy Manager technology recognized by The Computerworld Honors Program further validates both the business and environmental value we bring to the marketplace.”
Our congratulations go out to all of the other recognized Laureates and our heartfelt thanks go out to all of the judges at The Computerworld Honors Program.
From the Computerworld Honors Program press release:
“For over two decades, The Computerworld Honors Program has recognized individuals and organizations that create and use information technology to promote and advance public welfare, contribute to the greater good of society and change the world for the better.”
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
JouleX's Americas Technology Director, Scott Paisley, will speak on Energy Management: Reducing Demand and Improving ROI at the 2012 Building Energy Summit in Washington DC on March 15.
Regarding the Summit, Paisley had this to say: “At JouleX, we are always excited to participate in events that bring attention to the challenges of Energy Management, like the DC Energy Summit. I enjoy the opportunity to meet with our customers, discuss their energy challenges and needs, and provide them with technology that helps reduce energy intensity and lower costs!”
If you are in the Washington, DC area, please come out to join us.
To learn about future events attended by JouleX team members, take a look at our News & Events page.
"The Summit will combine keynote presentations by industry leaders, educational breakout sessions for hands-on learning, case studies demonstrating real projects and real results, and networking opportunities to meet colleagues and solution providers. You’ll hear from owners of the most efficient buildings in town who have slashed energy costs up to 40 percent! Most importantly, you’ll leave with an action plan to achieve your energy conservation goals."
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
Intel released a new video demonstrating how Intel, Dell, VMware and JouleX technologies optimize and reduce energy consumption in the data center, even in virtualized environments.
Data center operators around the globe tell us energy capacity planning is major concern for them. They talk about their struggles in optimizing energy while protecting service levels, as availability is clearly priority number one.
Increasing energy capacity doesn't mean turning machines off, it’s about intelligently allocating the energy you have. Even in virtualized environments, Intel, Dell, VMware, and JouleX have practical solutions that help data center operators gain energy visibility and recapture more energy capacity, save significant energy costs, and extend the lives of their data centers. All while helping data center operators protect service levels.
Check out the video below to learn more.
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
With all of the sustainability articles floating around, it's hard to tell what you should be spending your time reading. Here are a few articles that we felt were worth sharing. I hope you enjoy them!
- 5 Easy Online Tools to Reduce Personal Emissions - "How can we reduce emissions in our personal lives? Keeping it simple, reducing carbon and living a sustainable lifestyle is about making educated choices and taking eco actions that can be categorized in different areas of our lives."
- Ebay Data Center A Case Study In Energy Savings - "EBay’s overall goal in its data storage project was to turn 11 centers into three, but there was another challenge: it needed to consolidate its data centers and deploy new servers in a very short timeframe."
- New Cisco EnergyWise Video Showcases the JouleX Energy Manager - "Cisco recently released a great new video about showing some great features for how Cisco EnergyWise can help you monitor, analyze, and control energy usage and showcases the JouleX Energy Manager as a recommended energy management system for Cisco EnergyWise."
- The 10 best practices for sustainability reporting - "Whether producing their first or their fifteenth sustainability report, many companies still struggle with how to create a credible report that supports the company business strategy, while effectively controlling the labor and costs associated with report development."
- Green Server Wars Heat Up: Intel, AMD/SeaMIcro, and ARM - "Green IT needs a lot of new performance metrics to measure its commitment to energy efficiency. In server terms, performance per watt is an increasingly important statistic for data centers that are maxing out their available electricity."
- Suncorp Banks on Desktop Virtualization - "Desktop Anywhere was deployed in October 2011 and had 2000 users as of March this year. Staff can access a full desktop experience, including video, wherever they are working."
- Big Business on the Sustainability Offensive - "For decades, many companies have typically responded to sustainability challenges by pursuing incremental operational improvements. But we are beginning to see an interesting new trend – businesses using sustainability as a tactic for long-term offense, rather than just short-term defence."
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Cisco recently released a great new video about showing some great features for how Cisco EnergyWise can help you monitor, analyze, and control energy usage and showcases the JouleX Energy Manager as a recommended energy management system for Cisco EnergyWise.
The video demonstrates how, "IP connects every critical system, making the network a natural control plane for energy management."
Furthermore, it shows the power of using Cisco EnergyWise to instrument your network-connected devices with energy information and using the JouleX Energy Manager to easily create policies that save energy, save money, and reduce carbon emissions.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look at the video here:
Visit our Resources section to view related videos, white papers, and data sheets.
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
This week, I'm excited to share interviews with our two Co-Founders: Rene Seeber and Josef Brunner, and some interesting reading I found around the net. Happy Friday!
- Always On! An Interview with Rene Seeber: Now that the big launch of JouleX Energy Manager (JEM) Version 3.0 is in full swing, we thought it would be a great time to touch base with Rene Seeber, CTO and Co-founder of JouleX.
- Interview with Josef Brunner talking about JouleX's financial customers: Non-German speakers will want to use Google Translate
- 3 Ways Retailers Can Help Their Suppliers Tackle Sustainability: "Based on interviews with representatives from 20 different retail companies and 30 corporate sustainability reports from that sector, the report is an intriguing snapshot of the current priorities, challenges, and opportunities the retail sector faces."
- Data centre week – green awareness is growing: "I don’t normally make predictions. ... But until now what’s made the IT operation more sustainable has been primarily the cost-cutting exercises by the IT department/data centre managers. Now, though, the green agenda is being adopted at the highest level within companies as an integral element of business strategy."
- How Green is my IT: "Current data centers are becoming highly energy intensive and growing rapidly. At the current rate, the consumption could double in the next five years. According to a survey, IT is contributing 2% to global warming."
- IBM, Cisco and the business of smart cities: How two of the IT industry's largest companies plan to rewire urban living
- Rethinking Carbon Dioxide: From a Pollutant to an Asset
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!