Nowhere to escape: network-based IT Power Management (1)

Most network administrators are willing to manage networks only, but changing situations always force them to expand their responsibilities. Just as the current management of energy consumption and conservation technologies.

You may think that network-based IT Power Management has appeared in the previous generation of Ethernet power supply (PoE), which turns the data network into a primary power network. In various generations of PoE, the number of Watt-hours delivered by the data network continues to grow, and the number of devices that can be powered by the network also increases. Cisco recently launched an Ethernet universal power supply (UPOE) that increases Network delivery power to 60 watt. Cisco is expanding its partners, including new LED lighting suppliers powered by UPOE, to take advantage of the increased power supply.

Network administrators are concerned about this aspect.

With the increasing number of network-powered devices and the increasing energy consumption of IT monitoring, enterprises will naturally require network management to be more involved in IT energy management and conservation. "Power management has become part of the professional network team," said Mike Spanbauer, chief analyst at Current Analysis. However, some aspects have changed. Although the network team is not directly responsible for power budget management, as a member of enterprise IT management, all teams must report their energy consumption in some energy-intensive areas, such as the UK, these regional carbon emissions taxes bring the energy budget to three to four times that of the US. IT Organizations in the United States are not aware of the energy shortage, and the cloud computing industry is more energy-aware ."

"There is an emerging field that is very important to network personnel-many energy forms of the cloud economy model. Compared with applications running internally and on external clouds, you will find that accurate energy expenditure analysis is becoming increasingly important, which is also the reason why the cloud economy is hard to define ."

IT energy management technologies that must be mastered by network personnel

In addition to PoE, network providers are developing some technologies and establishing partnerships to help network administrators master IT energy management tools. Both Juniper and Cisco have established partnerships with JouleXr, a non-Agent Energy Management supplier, to monitor, analyze, and control the energy consumption of IT infrastructure and other enterprise devices. JouleX integrates Juniper's Junos Space SDK to monitor and analyze the energy consumption of any device in the Juniper network. JouleX also integrates Cisco products to analyze and control the energy consumption of devices in Cisco networks, including devices using network PoE power. Cisco's Energy Management Agreement EnergyWise helps JouleX consolidate Cisco products.

"EnergyWise supports energy analysis to capture device and port energy consumption and trend changes," Spanbauer said. In addition, it also controls some complex script control through the management system to implement the power control function ."

Encourage network teams to participate in IT Energy Management

Cisco is working to promote enterprise applications of EnergyWise technology. Cisco released the Fast-Start EnergyWise plan at the latest Cisco Live. This plan provides JouleX products to Cisco Catalyst 3 K and 4 K switches for free.

Joulex CEO and President Tom Noonan said: "Fast-Track free SKU allows Cisco customers to directly obtain the PoE device monitoring function attached to the switch. If they want to monitor servers, printers, replicas, PCs, and storage devices, they must be upgraded ."

At the same time, proxy-based PC Power Supply Management supplier Verdiem also expands its energy management function by integrating EnergyWise to monitor and manage the energy consumption of network equipment. With the Fast-Start plan, Catalyst Switch customers will be able to use it to manage network and PC energy consumption (up to 1,000 PCs) with a free annual Verdiem Surveyor authorization ).