IBM has launched a "mainframe gas gauge" to
widen its environmental push, in addition to promoting its
mainframes.
The system demonstrates a mainframe's energy usage versus x86
servers and other
distributed computing platforms.
As an extension of the company's ongoing £500m
Project Big Green initiative for datacentres, the program
allows mainframe customers to monitor their systems' precise energy
consumption in real-time.
IBM will also begin publishing typical energy consumption data
for the
IBM System z9 mainframe. The data is derived from actual field
measurements from about 1,000 customer machines, determining
average watts per hour consumed, which can be used to calculate
watts per unit.
IBM claims the data already collected for August and September
shows that typical energy use can be 60% of "what is on the label"
or maximum rating for the model of mainframe.
David Anderson, an
IBM green consultant, said, "A single mainframe running Linux
may be able to perform the same amount of work as approximately 250
x86 processors, while using as little as 2% to 10% of the amount of
energy. Customers can now measure the energy advantages of IBM
System z."