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Story URL: http://hardware.silicon.com/servers/0,39024647,39211277,00.htm

IBM tools to curb data centres' power-hungry appetite?
And gives out green prizes

By Reuters

Published: Thursday 01 May 2008

IBM has launched tools to reduce computer energy consumption as the company hopes to boost its business of selling power-saving technologies.

The products, announced at an IBM business-partner conference in Los Angeles, are designed to measure power consumption and reduction across energy-hungry computer data centres that run corporate networks and websites.

Green IT from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more...

A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

The world's largest technology services company is offering software that tracks and caps data centre energy consumption, including power for air conditioning to cool server computers.

IBM is also extending - to a further 27 countries - a programme begun in seven countries last year that lets companies earn and trade certificates awarded for verified energy savings.

William Zeitler, head of IBM's systems and technology group, told Reuters: "Energy efficiency has become a critical business metric, like product reliability and customer satisfaction."

IBM is expanding in so-called green data centres as it looks for new growth areas in developed regions such as Western Europe, as well as in developing countries that are spending heavily on new technology infrastructure.

Zeitler said: "The opportunity for us is to go to clients - there are an enormous number who are either transforming their data centres or will have to transform them. This is a critically important problem in the industry."

IBM's green data centre initiative has already begun to pay off a year after it was launched. It generated nearly $200m of technology-services contract signings in the first quarter and about $300m in the fourth, chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said in recent profits presentations.

Many of the countries added to the certificate programme are in emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East, where IBM has been generating double-digit percentage revenue growth from building technology infrastructure in telecoms, transportation and energy, among other areas.

Growth is also strong in Western Europe and the US, where banks, for example, are trying to rein in energy costs from running massive volumes of financial transactions on their computers. Banks are among IBM's biggest customers.

Joe Clabby, president at Clabby Analytics, said: "It's really taken off in North America in particular and Western Europe. Countries that are not energy self-sufficient are jumping on this initiative."