IBM to fit power meter to mainframe

ANOTHER DAY, another green story and this time it’s IBM fitting its mainframes with energy usage monitors so that customers can watch power budgets, and arguably the planet as we know it, tick away into nothingness.

The "gas gauge" monitors energy and cooling numbers by hooking up to sensors and then reports back stats to a console so admins can see them in real time, or round them up in subsequent reports. These reports can be used for cost-justification exercises or, where and when these rules apply, claiming rebates from utilities or even government departments.

In a press release, IBM green consultant David Anderson suggests one mainframe running Linux could do the same amount of work as 250 x86 servers for as little as two per cent of the power consumption. Hmm, I wonder what IBM’s System x marketers will think of that quote. Looks like the long-held détente between IBM’s competing server divisions could be off.

Two more thoughts. First, power consumption for datacentre servers is still usually a cost centre for the facilities management crew so it will be interesting to see whether IT bothers to route through that information to people who might not know what to do with it. Second, it’s a good bet that server vendors won’t agree a metric to compare and contrast server types and brands, including where sensors are located, how to measure the value-to-power equation, and so on.

Still, this is a step that looks worth investigating and the Armonk veterans also said they will offer a power capacity planning tool for estimating how setup changes will affect electricity bills.

Finally, IBM will also publish power usage figures, making it the first to comply with a US Environmental Protection Agency call for transparency among server vendors, the firm claimed. However, there’s also a spin in this for IBM’s big-tin department as it reckons mainframe virtualisation will show preferable utilisation, and therefore energy efficiency, compared to other system categories.

This is IBM’s latest step in a programme it has called Big Green (geddit?) µ.