JouleX Updates Software For Emerging ECEM Market

Energy management software maker JouleX on Jan. 10 is introducing JouleX Energy Manager (JEM) version 2.5, which helps control energy use within IT systems and includes the addition of a smart phone application for remote control of those systems. The software product joins a growing market for what the research firm Forrester describes as Enterprise Carbon and Energy Management (ECEM) software.

JEM 2.5 is a network-based, agent-less, energy management system, which means monitors do not have to be installed on each server, router or PC on the network. JEM 2.5 monitors, analyzes and manages energy usage by raising or lowering energy consumption based on network traffic, workload, time of day and other factors. JEM 2.5 also integrates with leading data center management tools such as Cisco Systems' EnergyWise, Intel's Data Center Manager and VMWare's vCenter.

The smart phone application can run on employees' phones and, by detecting their location via GPS, can power up their computer, printer and other devices as they arrive at the office. It powers those devices down when an employee leaves the office, including reducing lighting and HVAC systems. The application runs natively on the Apple iPhone, but there is also a browser-based version that would deliver the application to a smart phone powered by RIM's BlackBerry or Google's Android mobile operating systems (as long as the browsers support the HTML 5 standard for Web applications).

JouleX has a legacy as a network security vendor and has found that customer adoption of ECEM mirrors that of their adoption of security, says Mark Davidson, sustainability manager for JouleX. For example, businesses initially chose intrusion detection technology, but then came to embrace intrusion prevention as offering better security.

"Customers aren't jumping right away into power savings mode. They are really, for the first time ever, able to measure remotely the energy consumption of all these devices," says Davidson. JEM 2.5 can, for instance, identify what he calls "dead servers" running at low utilization but high energy consumption. An IT manager can compare the energy efficiency of HP versus IBM servers or calculate what energy efficiency can be gained by upgrading to new servers.ECEM software is just a small part of the $168 billion in software applications spending in 2010, of the total $2.5 trillion spent globally by businesses and governments on all IT products and services, but ECEM's "future seems bright," writes Daniel Krauss, lead author of a Forrester report on ECEM released in December.

While the report was based on a survey of 43 vendors with some kind of ECEM product on the market, Krauss identifies JouleX's approach to monitoring every device on the network as "innovative."

"It tracks and controls energy consumption of any device connected to the network [and] translates that into carbon emissions estimates based on location and power source," he writes. An April 2010 Global Green IT Online Survey by Forrester reveals a steep uptick in planned adoption of ECEM software by companies surveyed--to 27 percent in 2010 from 13 percent in 2009.

Forrester says a range of IT software companies in such areas as business intelligence (BI); governance, risk and compliance (GRC); and project and portfolio management (PPM) are adding ECEM solutions of one type or another, along with pure-play ECEM vendors. Forrester anticipates some vendor consolidation this year and next as the market matures.