System Center and Power Management
There has been a lot of talk recently about ‘Green IT’ and how power management can safe significant money for an IT organisation.
Just this last week there was and article in InfoWorld reporting that $2.8B per year is spent on keeping PCs powered on.
Microsoft have a whole site of Green IT resources - http://www.microsoft.com/environment/greenit/ – and Windows Vista, Windows 2008 server have many power management features. Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 build on these.
For those running with System Center Configuration Management there are a set of Configuration Packs to enforce some of these policies.
There are also several partner solutions that take these solutions further – all are part of the System Center Alliance.
First up is 1E with NightWatchman. This solution can run either standalone or integrated with your enterprise System Center Configuration Manager collections. The 1E solution features granular controls and very detailed reporting.
The next partner solution comes from Verdiem. Surveyor is a standalone solution which provides power management and reporting of your power usage and actual savings.
Finally Adaptiva are a new name on the block – however their solution Adaptiva Companion is well known and widely deployed, being previously sold via SCCM Expert. Adaptiva Companion is a veritable toolbox for SCCM administrators – the Power Management capabilities are well integrated and provide visual reporting of actual savings.
I hope this gives a good round up of the current state of play for Power Management and reporting for Windows workstations. Microsoft have a wide range of resources available; which are rounded out by a range of choices from System Center Alliance Partners. You can gain control of your costs and carbon footprint with minimal investment.
