Smart software could mean big energy savings in data centers

A new software designed for use in the data center could well translate into huge energy--and hence monetary--savings. A one-year old company called Power Assure thinks its Holistic Power Management Services has the solution. Typically, even an idling server uses between 60 and 90 percent of the power required to operate at peak capacity. To cope with unexpected shifts in traffic and in required processing capacity, companies tend to leave them on--resulting in big losses.

By monitoring power usage data every minute, the software will dynamically power servers on or off to maximize energy consumption. If you take into consideration that a large server farm may spend up to $6 million yearly on electrical bills, this can add up to huge amounts of money that will be saved.

To read up more on the Holistic Power Management Services:
- check out this CNET News article