Big Blue goes green(er) 2 May, 2008 By Steve Wexler

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"They are out of power, out of space and out of skills," said Jim Stallings, GM, enterprise systems division, IBM Systems & Technology Group. According to IBM, IT energy demand is doubling every 9 to 24 months and by 2011, organizations will spend $1 on power and cooling for every $1 spent on hardware. Of greater concern  and opportunity for IBM and its partners  is that out of every 100 units of energy production only 3 units result in productive IT.

The announcements include new energy-management software, an expansion of the energy certificates program, and an energy benchmark to help clients establish energy efficiency goals, optimize for energy efficiency and measure and verify their green IT progress across the enterprise. The Active Energy Manager (AEM) software can measure power usage of key elements of the datacenter, from IT systems to chilling and air conditioning units. IBM's Energy Certificates program is being expanded to 34 countries; and an online energy assessment benchmark is being added.

The announcements come a year after IBM launched its Project Big Green on May 10, 2007, said Rich Lechner, VP, IBM enterprise systems."Clients today are looking for ways to measure their green IT projects and have positive business results that can be documented and verified."

To help these clients Big Blue is calling on its channel partners to embrace two new programs, a certification and skills program that will focus on skills development, and an alliance program with a variety of partners centered around environmentally friendly data center technologies like virtualization.

AEM tracks energy consumption in data centers and helps customers monitor power usage and make adjustments to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The new software allows IT managers to control their energy use for servers, storage, and networking as well as the air conditioning and power management systems that keep the data center running.

Already up and running in North America, the Energy Efficiency Certificate program from IBM and Neuwing Energy is being expanded to 34 countries. This program enables clients to measure their energy usage while earning energy efficiency certificates for reducing the energy used to run their data centers. The certificates earned -- based on energy use reduction verified by a certified third-party -- can be traded for cash on the growing energy efficiency certificate market or otherwise retained to demonstrate reductions in energy use and associated CO2 emissions.

IBM 's free on-line energy benchmark tool provides actionable insight into a company's IT-related energy efficiency status, helping managers determine business strategies for improving and closing efficiency gaps. Independently produced by The Bathwick Group, the tool allows clients to measure their efficiency score against other organizations worldwide, and can be found at: http://ibmgreen.bathwick.com

This is a big opportunity for IBM and the channel, said Stallings. The company has already worked with more than 2,000 clients and achieved significant savings, as high as 70 percent in operational costs, in its own data centers.

"The message to the business partners is to get skilled, get certified and get engaged."