ARMONK, USA: At its annual IBM Pulse Conference in Orlando, IBM announced new software designed to help customers address the growing need to maximize energy efficiency and reduce costs associated with power and cooling. The software is part of IBM's Project Big Green initiative in which IBM has committed $1 billion per year to deliver technologies that help customers increase energy efficiency in their data centers and physical plants.

This latest version of IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) software consolidates views of energy management information that enable optimization across data centers and facilities infrastructures. Monitoring capabilities offer customers the ability to understand energy usage to alert data center managers to potential energy-related problems and take preventive action.

Historical trending and forecasting capabilities enable greater precision in existing environments and energy planning. Autonomic capabilities allow customers to set power and utilization thresholds to help control energy usage. The new software can also help customers handle physical constraints in the data center relating to space, power and cooling.

IBM is combining the new energy management software with partner solutions to provide customers with a comprehensive view of energy consumption across the enterprise -- not just in data centers but also in non-IT assets such as air conditioning equipment, power distribution units, lighting, and security systems.

According to a 2007 EPA research report, US energy consumption by servers and data centers is expected to nearly double in the next five years.

"Customers today are faced with an array of energy challenges such as increased power and cooling costs, exceeding power capacity, and an inability to monitor and plan for power consumption," said Al Zollar, General Manager, IBM Tivoli. "IBM's new software offers the tools needed to monitor and manage power usage. Together with our partners, we are able to expand on our data center management capabilities to include facility management that provides customers with a holistic view of energy consumption and its potential impact on their businesses."

Generally, more than 50 percent of the energy consumed by data centers is now utilized for power and cooling infrastructures. IBM's new software provides the foundation of efficient data center energy management going beyond a single vendor solution by providing an interface that can be used with partners for visibility into comprehensive power, thermal and environmental data.

By combining the ITM energy management software with partner solutions, customers can capture operating and performance data from data centers and non-IT assets and use this information to analyze events and alerts, correlate with end-user application performance, and associate with service levels to take preventive action that can result in lower energy consumption while helping to enhance the quality of IT services delivery.