Networking technology giant Cisco has continued its push into the energy management space with the news it has inked a partnership agreement with PC and server power management specialist 1E.
UK-based 1E has confirmed that it has teamed up with Cisco to produce a version of its NightWatchman application that integrates with Cisco’s EnergyWise energy use monitoring system, providing a means of tracking energy consumption across a company’s entire IT infrastructure, including servers, PCs, laptops, peripheral devices and even building energy management systems.
The integrated application also features NightWatchman’s existing power management functionality, which allows firms to automatically power down or turn off PCs that are left on overnight and servers that are not in use.
Speaking to BusinessGreen, Andy Hawkins, product manager at 1E, said that Cisco’s EnergyWise platform offered a relatively seamless means of tracking energy use across a company’s entire IT infrastructure.
“Cisco has an excellent chance of solving the huge challenge of all these IT devices speaking different languages when they report their energy use,” he said. “What Cisco has figured out is that the common point for all the different devices is that they have to connect to the network and that is where EnergyWise can capture all the data.”
Hawkins added that integrating NightWatchman and EnergyWise would allow 1E customers to discover unmanaged PCs and servers on the network and monitor and manage PC and server energy use, alongside reporting on energy use across the company’s IT infrastructure.
He also hinted that the integration with EnergyWise could provide 1E with the opportunity to apply its PC turn off model to a greater range of devices, although he said the company would first focus on highlighting the amount of energy different devices use before introducing management functionality.
“You have to be careful not to annoy the user,” he said, explaining that the company had invested heavily in ensuring its PC turn off software was sophisticated enough to ensure only machines that are not in use are powered down.
1E has long maintained that companies can deliver significant cost savings by deploying power management software that automatically turns off the estimated 50 per cent of PCS that are left on overnight in some businesses. The company claims that a 10,000 employee company can cut its energy bills by around $1m a year by deploying PC turn off software.
