Power Assure Integrates Gartner PPE Metric

Power Assure, Inc. has integrated the Power to Performance Effectiveness (PPE) metric into its Dynamic Power Management dashboard, the company said today. The concept of the PPE metric was originally developed by Gartner to give IT managers a better view of performance levels and potential within their data centers. Power Assure announced the feature in conjunction with today's kickoff of the annual Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas.

The PPE metric was developed to help identify at the device level, where efficiencies could be gained by allowing users to define optimal performance levels, and track and compare their performance against these standards. The integration of PPE provides additional tools beyond the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE) efficiency metrics popularized by The Green Grid.

“Organizations need to look beyond PUE and DCiE to gain full visibility and management into their data center,” said Clemens Pfeiffer, CTO of Power Assure. “With an easily understood metric to gauge data center efficiency and how much improvements in efficiencies have been created on an ongoing basis, companies will have a better view of efficiency and performance levels within their data center.”

Gartner analyst Davis Cappuccio outlined the PPE metric as a way to track both efficiency and capacity. "A typical x86 server will consume between 60% and 70% of its total power load when running at low utilization levels," Cappuccio wrote. "Raising utilization levels has only a nominal impact on power consumed, and yet a significant impact on effective performance per kilowatt. Pushing IT resources toward higher effective performance per kilowatt can have a twofold effect of improving energy consumption (putting energy to work) and extending the life of existing assets through increased throughput.”

Power Assure’s software dynamically manages server capacity using a “sophisticated calculation engine’s processing of extensive real-time data.” The Santa Clara, Calif. company says its software can calculate the ideal number of servers needed to run applications and maintain Service Level Agreements, while automatically shutting down unneeded servers.

Power Assure is privately held with funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Good Energies, Point Judith Capital, and a grant from the Department of Energy. Power Assure partners include ABB, Dell, IBM, Intel and VMware.

The Gartner Data Center Conference begins today and continues through Wednesday. For updates, follow the #gartnerdc tag on Twitter.