SOMERSET, N.J. (July 13, 2009) - Raritan today announced significant enhancements to its Power IQ™ data center energy management software to help companies better track and analyze energy usage down to the individual IT device level, and implement energy-saving actions anywhere in the enterprise from a central power console.

The new expanded release of Power IQ is well positioned to serve as the single central console for energy management and complete rack PDU (power distribution unit) management in data centers.  In addition to gathering information from IT equipment plugged into Raritan’s award-winning Dominion® PX PDUs, Power IQ now also collects energy data from and provides remote power control of the following Ethernet-enabled rack PDUs: APC, Avocent, Cyber Switching, Geist, HP, MRV and Server Technology. 

“Data Centers and Labs have an opportunity to realize substantial energy efficiency gains,” said James Cerwinski, Senior Product Manager at Raritan.  “Intelligent energy management solutions that measure and track an enterprise’s usage at the device level can help customers achieve a better understanding of how much and how their data centers consume energy, and, as a result, can take steps to become more energy efficient.  Power IQ’s new automated power control, for example, can help improve energy efficiency by scheduling devices to turn off for periods when not needed.”

Other energy-management activities enabled by Power IQ include:  increasing a server room’s ambient temperature gradually, creating energy cost bill-back reports to drive behavior, forecasting potential energy savings before decommissioning servers, and scheduling power usage at optimal times to qualify for energy rebates.

Visualizing & Reporting Energy Usage
Enterprise-wide data collection enables Power IQ’s analytics to calculate and chart active power, energy consumption, cost and carbon footprint for servers and other IT devices.  Power information is presented in user-configurable graphs and reports that can be accessed from anywhere with Power IQ’s Web-based dashboard.  Graphs can easily depict which devices are consuming the most energy, whether power conservation efforts are working, and if there are hot spots or over-cooled areas.

Reports can be easily tailored to look at power over any user-defined time periods.  In addition, trending reports and cumulative totals can be displayed at the data center, floor, room, rack, customer and IT device level.

ARCHER Technology Group, an innovative co-location and managed services provider serving Central and Southern California, is leveraging Power IQ to manage data center energy usage and a customer energy bill-back program.  “Raritan’s solution allowed us to develop a go-to-market strategy that incorporates billing for actual power usage, instead of the typical co-location model of flat-rate energy billing.  This has provided a cost significant advantage for customers in our co-location facility ” said Dustin Phillips, who is in charge of ARCHER’s co-location operations.

“We use Power IQ to generate monthly energy-trend reports that provide customers with actual usage levels by server and IT device.  We’re looking forward to the new release of Power IQ because it will enable us to provide our customers the ability to run their own reports and to securely power cycle their equipment via a Web interface.  Our customers will be able to take a more active role in managing their servers and their energy utilization.  ARCHER Technology Group, Inc. is an Information Technology solutions provider specializing in assisting organizations maximize performance through the use of IP telephony, network technologies, and enterprise applications.

Comprehensive Remote Power Control
Power IQ 1.4 provides easy and comprehensive device grouping and permission management.  With a simple right click command, users are able to control all outlets associated with a rack, IT device, or group of IT devices. 

“Raritan’s Power IQ version 1.4 introduces significant enhancements over previous editions; most notably, IT Device Grouping with “Click & Confirm” control of power for all grouped devices,” said James Sinkiewicz, from JSCS Computer Solutions, a Raritan platinum partner based in El Cajon, Calif.  “This feature provides the IT professional a highly secure way to control potentially unlimited numbers of outlets, no matter where they are located, with just a few clicks of the mouse.  This is just one of the energy management features of Power IQ that will provide companies with the potential for tremendous energy savings and quick ROI.”

Power IQ’s secure remote power control capabilities can be used to schedule power usage, such as automatically power on or off certain device groups by day and time and by providing detailed reports on the energy savings.  Device group power control also can help a data center manager extend battery life in the event of commercial power failure by turning off a non-critical device group.  Users can also program to turn on all IT devices required for a specific Web service—in configured order and with the required delays between devices.

Availability
Available worldwide through Raritan’s channel partners, Power IQ 1.4 is offered in two models—a virtual appliance and a hardware appliance.  The virtual appliance is tested to run on a customer’s VMware® platform - saving rack space, energy and hardware costs.  The hardware appliance is a turnkey solution on an enterprise-class server. Visit Data Center Energy Management http://www.raritan.com/power-iq-1-4/ to learn more.

About Raritan (Raritan.com)

Raritan is a proven innovator of power management, infrastructure management, KVM and serial solutions for data centers of all sizes.  In more than 50,000 locations worldwide, Raritan’s award-winning hardware and software solutions—including intelligent PDUs, energy management software, KVM-over-IP and Serial-over-IP access products—provide IT and facility directors, managers and administrators with the control they need to increase power management efficiency, improve data center productivity and enhance branch office operations. Based in Somerset, N.J., Raritan has offices worldwide serving 76 countries.  For more information, visit Raritan.com.

Raritan is an active member of the Green Grid, Climate Savers Computing Initiative, and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design associations.  The company was recently recognized by the EPA for its contribution to the agency’s data center initiative.

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