Rising energy costs and the growing desire to be environmentally responsible led Howard Community College on a mission to green their campus. Like most IT professionals, Sung Lee knew that there were financial and environmental benefits to reducing computer energy waste. As the Director of Student Computer Support for Howard Community College, Sung recognized that there was no need for HCC’s computers to be running during periods where computer labs were not being used.
Sung began experimenting with the power saving settings that his Windows computers had—but the problem was that the power saving settings that come with Windows were too rigid and disruptive for HCC’s needs. Since the operating system’s power management settings are strictly based on time, they cannot be set to revolve around user activity. Once the operating system’s power management is enabled, Windows recognizes a computer as in-use only if there is keyboard or mouse activity. One can imagine the frustration teachers and students felt when computers would power down in the middle of PowerPoint presentations and lessons that involved watching video clips through Windows Media Player. Clearly the computers were in use, but since Windows did not detect keyboard or mouse activity for a period of time, it blanked the monitors and then powered down the computers.
HCC found a power management solution that allowed them to maximize energy savings when computers were not in use without disrupting user activities. Best known for their Deep Freeze system integrity software, award-winning Faronics was able to provide HCC with Power Save. “It’s just what we needed,” recalls Lee. “Power Save is smart enough to recognize when computers are in use, and it allowed [us] IT administrators to still retain our ability to service the workstations and easily deploy system updates.
Power Save has a unique feature that no other energy management software has—the ability to initiate energy conservation policies based on CPU, disk and application activity. By basing energy management on activity, rather than fixed time values, Power Save is better able to match energy management with user activity. Power Save also enables IT administrators to prevent any energy management from taking place when certain applications are running. While HCC did evaluate alternative energy management solutions, they found Power Save to be the best balance between staff, student and IT needs.
Howard Community College has currently instructed Power Save to shutdown monitors after 20 minutes of inactivity and computers after two hours of inactivity. Based on their current settings, HCC is saving $4,200 per month—that works out to over $50,000 per year that Howard Community College now has to buy new IT equipment and software, hire more personnel or invest into employee training.
HCC knows exactly how much they are saving every year because Power Save features detailed enterprise reporting. “Reporting really sealed the deal for us,” says Lee. “It makes it easy to associate a dollar value to the energy management methods we have deployed.”
For more information, visit www.faronics.com.
Comments