Leaving an average PC and CRT monitor constantly switched on, perhaps for convenience or IT administration purposes, conservatively consumes 750kWh per annum, costing in excess of R480 per annum in energy bills to run. This also equates to about 772kg of CO2 per year.

With PC power management solutions from sustainableIT and our technology partner 1E, companies can save more than R250 per PC per year and reduce emissions into the environment by so doing. In an office of 1000 PCs, annual energy cost savings are in excess of R250,000 and more if the offices are air-conditioned. This cost effective solution provides a quick win in energy savings initiatives and typically provides a payback period of around 9 months.

Case Study – Bovis Lend Lease

Our Power and Patch Management pack is made up of two products:

NightWatchman

NightWatchman shuts machines down and supports the following features:

• Powers down or logs off PCs across an enterprise
• Protects unsaved user data prior to shutdown
• Produces reports to calculate current and potential future savings
• Controls PC Power Scheme settings
• Schedules daily, immediate or once off shutdowns
• Controllable with any systems management tooling as well as through its own console
• Energy, cost and co2 emissions reporting

1E WakeUP

1E WakeUp enables Wake-On-LAN to function in large complex networks. These typically present several challenges, such as blocking wake messages at each boundary. 1E WakeUp uses an intelligent agent to avoid relaxing network security and to report on success or failure. Large scale events are controlled by powering machines in stages, balancing network load by distributing waves of power events.

Key features and benefits include:

• Reduces cost of software & patch deployments by enabling 100% distribution success
• Computer Health monitors PC ‘health’ trends and enables pro-active or automated problem resolution
• 1E Web WakeUp allows users to power up their office PC remotely ensuring access to resources at all times
• Integrates with Configuration Manager 2007 and supports Intel® Active Management Technology (vPro^TM)
• Gives complete visibility with reports on power & deployment success and computer health issues
• Minimizes network impact by using staggered distributions
• Configurable for any type of network including where subnet-directed broadcasts are disabled

The software uses a combination of standard ‘Magic Packets’ and an agent service to enable Wake-On-LAN to function over networks which do not support directed subnet broadcasts.

Although 1E WakeUp can only be used to turn PCs on, it can be used in conjunction with another 1E product, NightWatchman, to turn off PCs. NightWatchman can turn off PCs on demand, or according to a schedule, thereby reducing power consumption. It also saves any open documents thereby ensuring that no data is lost during the shutdown.

1E WakeUp and NightWatchman can be purchased together as a cost effective power management and software updating solution – the Power & Patch Management Pack.

Benefits

• Dramatically improves user productivity by ensuring every user has a healthy, well performing PC
• Proactively checks PCs, identifying issues and automatically remedying them
• Dramatically reduces downtime and guarantees 100% patch deployment success
• Supports almost instant delivery of software and patches across an entire network
• Integrates seamlessly with NightWatchman to deliver round the clock PC power and patch management
• The most scalable solution available today; we have several customers with over 300,000 licences
• The only solution of its type to achieve Common Criteria for IT Security (CC) Assurance

Tim James, CEO of green IT consultancy sustainableIT says the proliferation of sustainable IT practices are becoming more apparent and getting more focus on the CIO’s agenda, however tangible action needs to happen in this untapped area for energy efficiency in the enterprise.

He says IT administrators in many organisations continue to insist that PC’s should remain on 24 hours a day to allow for out of hours management such as patching updates and virus scans.

“The reality is that this is an inefficient way of delivering the IT service, both in terms of cost and energy Power management tooling exists which allows companies to automate power downs and power ups of infrastructure, ensuring cost savings as well as facilitating IT department’s requirements.” 

The findings of a recent PC Energy Report commissioned by 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy, indicated that despite spiralling energy costs globally and the environment playing an increasing role in the corporate agenda, much further action is required by both individuals and employers.

Key statistics show that the environment is the main reason why 27% of UK workers power down their computers at the end of the workday compared to only 10% who cited this reason in the US.

If the 17 million workers in the UK who regularly use a computer turned it off at night, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approx 1.3 million tons, the equivalent of removing 245 000 cars from the road.

James that although the research was conducted in Germany, the UK and US, the findings have as much relevance, if not more so, within the South African context. “We are still in the midst of an energy crisis and we interact with organisations on a daily basis that are leaving PCs in an idle state overnight. In some organizations we are seeing in excess of 95% of machines being left on overnight.  We are certainly less aware of our environmental impacts than UK-based employees and would have a similar profile to the report’s findings on US employees,” he says.

The report indicated that if all of the worlds 1 Billion PC’s were powered down overnight, the energy saving would be enough to power the Empire State Building in New York, inside and out for 30 years.  Put another way, the same saving in energy would power the entire South African grid for 2 days.

The simple step of powering down a PC can reduce a machine’s energy use by 80%, allowing companies to save more than R260 per desktop PC per annum.

“Powering down inactive PCs can provide a simple yet effective way for businesses to reduce overhead costs and environmental impact,” says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.

“The economic crisis and volatile energy prices make it even more imperative for businesses to save money by saving energy.”

A computer uses energy even when it appears to be idle. Shutting down PCs when not in use will help businesses to significantly reduce costs while preventing tons of CO2 from being emitted into our atmosphere.

“Although much focus has been placed on data centre efficiency, according to Gartner, the majority of energy is consumed in PC’s and monitors from an ICT perspective.  Organisations simply must adopt tooling to power this infrastructure down”, James concludes.

Published in Business Day,  22 July 2010