Sometime in 2002 or 2003, I sat in a room with several other PeopleSoft IT employees while we considered how we could use the then-new Data Center's resources during rolling brown-outs.  Power consumption in California was an issue then and the price of that electricity from Pacific Gas and Electric was increasingly onerous.  It led me to wonder: how could we shut off underutilized servers in some of our production server farms to help with the cause?  Turn the clock forward to 2008, and some environmentally friendly folks are asking the same question.  Although we are not currently blighted by rolling power brown-outs, power consumption, heating and cooling remain issues for everyday IT shops. 

Virtualization, whether server or application, can assist us with this issue. Addressing the need for a smaller physical server footprint leads to the idea of less physical server room space.  This in turn reduces power consumption issues by giving us less to cool.  Now, pair a virtualization solution with a blade chassis from Hewlett Packard and you just might be sitting pretty.  However, if you still have 1U, 2U or 3U servers, then what?  A utility on the Citrix horizon is "Citrix PowerSmart" which can help you save power with some of those underutilized Presentation Server/XenApp servers.  With PowerSmart, Citrix and Hewlett Packard have joined together to provide a utility that assesses whether that server is idle or underutilized, and if so, lower the power consumption.  For you admins sitting there wondering why this would matter to you, here's the gig:

While you're saving power with PowerSmart, using blades and virtualizing through the awesome power of paravirtualization via XenServer, your boss and company are taking interest in saving money.  How can you be PowerSmart and pennywise?  Utility providers such as Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, et al, actually provide incentives and rebates for customers that virtualize.  Virtualizing and saving energy with PowerSmart can bring you cost-saving and other benefits we've mentioned above. 

But wait, there's more--best of all, Citrix PowerSmart is free!   

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For extra credit, some light reading on the subject:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA1-7946ENW.pdf?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Hewlett Packard Energy Efficient Computing with Citrix PowerSmart:

http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA1-7655ENW.pdf

Southern California Edison Virtualization Incentives:

http://www.sce.com/RebatesandSavings/LargeBusiness/SPC/default.htm?goto=spc

Pacific Gas and Electric (Northern California) Virtualization Rebates:

http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/incentivesbyindustry/hightech/hteeincentives.shtml

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Note: PowerSmart is currently compatible with XenApp 4.5 but is not included in the product downloads or on the media.  Citrix PowerSmart is still in Beta and is available for HP customers to use, and is available for download from Citrix Developer Network at the following URL:
http://community.citrix.com/display/cdn/Citrix+PowerSmart+Utility+for+Presentation+Server+%2528Beta%2529

Remember, PowerSmart is compatible with Hewlett Packard servers only.  If you have questions, please see the forums at http://support.citrix.com.

Cheers and see you next week,

Jon