Environmental Enhancements
Power and cooling discussions have entered the budget planning of every IT environment. As energy prices have risen and utilities have restricted the amount of power usage, it is important to review the role of the server in bal- ancing IT spending.
Power Monitoring
The “mainframe gas gauge” feature introduced on the System z9 servers, provides power and thermal informa- tion via the System Activity Display (SAD) on the Hardware Management Console and will be available on the z10 BC giving a point in time reference of the information. The current total power consumption in watts and BTU/hour as well as the air input temperature will be displayed.
Power Estimation Tool
To assist in energy planning, Resource Link provides tools to estimate server energy requirements before a new server purchase. A user will input the machine model, memory, and I/O confi guration and the tool will output an estimate of the system total heat load and utility input power. A customized planning aid is also available on Resource Link which provides physical characteristics of the machine along with cooling recommendations, environmental specifi cations, system power rating, power plugs/receptacles, line cord wire specifi cations and the machine confi guration.
IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager
IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™ (AEM) is a building block which enables customers to manage actual power consumption and resulting thermal loads IBM serv- ers place in the data center. The z10 BC provides support for IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager (AEM) for Linux on System z for a single view of actual energy usage across multiple heterogeneous IBM platforms within the infrastructure. AEM for Linux on System z will allow tracking of trends for both the z10 BC as well as multiple server platforms. With this trend analysis, a data center administrator will have the data to help properly estimate power inputs and more accurately plan data center con- solidation or modifi cation projects.
On System z10, the HMC will now provide support for the Active Energy Manager (AEM) which will display power consumption/air input temperature as well as exhaust temperature. AEM will also provide some limited status/ confi guration information which might assist in explaining changes to the power consumption. AEM is exclusive to System z10.
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