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Commercial Solutions

There are a number of commercial software packages offer more feature-rich solutions and may deliver more energy savings, but they involve fees.

Technical assistance for Network Administrators

Computers Off contractors can answer technical questions about deploying these settings — and about the various options for keeping sleeping PCs up to date with security and other software patches. A quick conference call can save you time researching various solutions, and arm you with lessons learned from dozens of large and small IT departments. To schedule a technical assistance call, send an email to support@computersoff.org

Some Power Management solutions enables enterprise IT staff to monitor, manage, control and report the Power conservation settings and also the CO2 reduction of computers and monitors, resulting in annual cost savings from $20 to $80 per PC.

Highlights from commercial software solutions

Significant reduction in energy costs – Reduce annual energy costs by up to $80 per PC by automatically minimizing power consumption when computing resources are sitting idle.
Reduction in CO2 emissions – Reduce global warming greenhouse gas production by reducing power consumption across the organization.
Unprecedented real-time visibility – Track power settings, usage, and cost over time through powerful reporting capabilities at both the individual endpoint and aggregate levels.
Power management policy enforcement – Ensure that computers are using the appropriate power policies.
Distributed Wake-on-LAN capabilities – Remotely wake computers for routine or emergency software deployments, configuration changes, or security measures without in-person intervention or disturbance to end users.
Lower total cost of ownership – A single, consolidated console can control and report on up to 200,000 endpoints.

Commercial software solutions reporting functions include:

Power Savings Calculators - Projects the dollar value of power savings enabled through use of Power Management-based energy conservation programs.
Carbon Savings Calculators - Projects carbon load reductions based on widely accepted algorithms, constants, and assumptions.
Power Spectrum - Unique power consumption visualisation tool.
Aggregate Management Statistics - Provide an overview of power usage, including the number of computers powered on for a given time interval.
General Management Statistics - Provide more fine grained analysis of Power Management including information concerning number of monitored computers, average individual computer power-on time per day, average group/departmental/ enterprise computer power-on time per day, average time between restarts, and total power-on time.
Custom Management Statistics - Power-on usage statistics based on administrator-specified time intervals.

Activating power management: commercial software packages

Several commercial software packages provide functionality for activating computer power management features. They may also offer a way to ensure that administrative software updates (such as Windows updates and antivirus definitions) are applied to computers that "sleep".

'Computers Off' does not endorsement, approve, or certify any of these software packages. These software packages are detailed to ensure that you have the information required, should you wish to look at commercial technology.

Adaptiva Companion™ (by Adaptiva) centrally manages PC power policies and produces energy savings reports. It can power inactive PCs off and wake them for software updates, and allows end-users to establish custom work and holiday schedules. Read how E.ON UK uses Companion to save £140,000 a year across 11,000 PCs .
Avocent's LANDesk Management Suite allows administrators to centrally control end-node power consumption by facilitating the creation, financial evaluation, and deployment of power management policies. Brevard Public Schools (Florida) (129KB) indicates annual power savings in the $300k–$500k range with LANDesk.
BigFix Power Management enables enterprises to set and enforce power conservation measures on PCs and may also integrate PC Power Conservation with other BigFix security and system management functions. Miami Dade County Schools (520KB) uses BigFix Power Management to save $2.1 million per year.
eiPower Saver Solution is an enterprise desktop power management application that monitors the power events of PCs. Administrators can view power events, set, enforce, and fine tune Windows power settings from a central location to save power, and not interfere with PC software administration.
Eventzero's Greentrac approach to Power Management focuses on the behaviour on the user and not just power policy enforcement. Greentrac collects PC and device energy consumption and utilization information.
Faronics Power Save is an enterprise class software product with a single mandate of identifying and shutting down inactive workstations and reporting on the generated energy savings. It runs on both, Windows PCs and Macs. Coeur D’Alene School District (117KB) expects to save as much as $300,000 over the course of three years using Faronics Power Save. ADT (442KB) will save over 35,000 kWh per month using Power Save.
KBOX™ Systems Management Appliances (by Kace) allows system managers to create and enforce power management policies across both local and remote environments, and provides visibility into compliance and savings information with customizable reports. Royal Liver (808KB) will save $120,000 annually by using KBOX.
LANrev's Power Management extends the built-in energy settings on Macs and Windows with enhanced scheduling and triggers. LANrev can schedule when to wake or restart a machine and track actual usage and savings with LANrev's Power Management reports.
NightWatchman and 1E WakeUp (both from 1E) allow you to shutdown your PC and wake it up for updates at night. Dell cut energy use by 40% using NightWatchman and 1E WakeUp software on its desktop and notebook computers.
Power Manager (from Verismic) brings intuitive, low administration overhead, web-based control over your PC estate to generate cost savings and the PR benefits of Green IT. Read about how the City of Richmond chose this tool .
Remote Desktop (from Apple) can centrally control power management features on Macs.
Surveyor (from Verdiem) allows you to activate manage, measure and reduce your PC-network energy consumption. SURVEYOR provides centralized administration of power management settings for networked PCs with intelligent policies that maximize energy savings by placing machines into a lower power states without interfering with end-user productivity, desktop maintenance or upgrades. City University of New York (228KB) used the tool on nearly 30,000 PCs for a savings of $3 million over a five year period.
SysTrack Power Management (from Lakeside Software Inc.) provides a simple automated remote deployment to the target desktop systems; dynamic power schedule discovery based on actual use; and system wakeup not reliant on WoL technology. Read about how it was used at a large financial institution .
Triumfant’s Green IT Power Management solution reduces computer power consumption without impacting computer use or administration. Based on an organization’s energy management policies, Triumfant’s Green IT Power Management solution automatically detects when a PC is out of compliance and automatically adjusts it to the correct power configuration settings. Read their white paper (411KB) on Green IT Power Management.
vPro is a platform built into Intel systems that supports remote out-of-band management of PCs, irrespective of the operating system's state. As such, it has the capability to "wake up" sleeping computers to deploy updates and applications, or to take remote control of user PCs for maintenance. "vPro has a management component integrated with Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) , making it easier to power up a vPro client PC that is turned off or in sleep mode in order to execute any number of system maintenance tasks."