Raritan introduces a new version of its award-winning Power IQ® Energy Management Software, which helps data center and lab administrators better understand rack environmental conditions to optimize cooling energy resource utilization without compromising performance.

Power IQ 2.0 provides thermal statistics for rack temperature monitoring based on industry guidelines, including ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) guidelines that recommend raising the upper temperature limit in a data center to 26.6 degrees Celsius. Power IQ offers a comprehensive solution to: inform users whether a data center or lab is within these recommendations and the amount of energy that could be saved by raising the temperature to meet these new recommendations; alert users if the temperature exceeds minimum conditions; and provide long-term trend graphs. The solution also allows for the shutdown of Windows and Linux servers that are consuming unnecessary power.

Safely increasing the ambient temperature in a data center can result in significant savings. According to David J. Cappuccio, Vice President of Management and Research Manager for Equipment Infrastructure at Gartner, "Data center managers can save up to 3 percent on energy costs for every degree the reference temperature, known as the set point, is raised. A higher set point means less frequent use of air conditioning, saving the energy used to run cooling systems."

Power IQ 2.0's single-agent approach enables the power-up and power-down of servers connected to power distribution units (PDUs). It requires no additional software to load on the target server and leverages standard operating system scripts and commands. Energy can be saved by scheduling automatic power-up cycles for a "group of IT devices" when they are not needed. For example, a lab manager could save about 25 percent on energy consumption by shutting down systems at 7 p.m. on Friday and turning them on at 5 a.m. on Monday.

Other features of the v2.0 software include:
• Energy and Environmental Health Monitoring – Power IQ collects SNMP traps from all PDUs and environmental sensors, providing an event browser to sort and filter the event list and sending email notifications for specific events.
• Independent Name Distributor – Easily configure or edit the PD output name, system name, and contact name.
• Search Growth – Allows the use of a partial IT or IP device name to find PDUs or IT devices.
“Data center and lab managers are struggling to keep up with the growing demand for power. Customers tell me they are running out of power and need a way to manage this resource more efficiently,” says James Cerwinski, Senior Product Manager in Raritan’s power division. "Power IQ provides a complete solution to get the most out of your existing power supply and infrastructure. Power IQ provides the information and control to be more energy efficient and the ability to find underutilized areas, such as overcooling and underutilized server maintenance."

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