NEW YORK, April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Raritan Inc. and EDSA Micro Corporation today announced that the two companies have combined their data center power analytics solutions to help companies automatically calculate and present energy efficiency ratings based on the new Advanced Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric (formerly called Level 3) -- developed by the global IT association, The Green Grid.

Advanced/Level 3 PUE requires that data center energy data be monitored and recorded continuously, down to the server level -- making the Raritan/EDSA collaboration the first such commercialized solution available in the marketplace.

The two companies' combined offerings deliver a solution that pulls real- time data values -- continuously and automatically -- to calculate and present energy utilization results in the manner specified by The Green Grid's PUE requirements. The combined solutions measure energy usage from the point where energy enters a facility all the way to an IT device. EDSA's electrical power diagnostics solution tracks and measures energy used in a building's electrical infrastructure, such as lighting, cooling and UPS, while Raritan's energy management solutions uniquely measure the energy that IT equipment use -- right down to the outlets into which servers plug. The solutions are being shown at this week's Uptime Symposium in New York.

"With the easy-to-understand energy information that EDSA's and Raritan's solutions provide, data center managers can see how much of a facility's total energy makes it to the IT equipment and how each IT device is actually using the energy," said Yee Liaw, Raritan's Vice President of Advanced Technologies. "Tracking energy use and changes using standard metrics, such as the PUE, and having tools to conduct what-if scenarios, are valuable in optimizing data centers. We are pleased to be working with EDSA in helping customers gain better energy insights in order to make informed decisions on their data centers."

A metric for data centers that is easy to understand and use - such as miles-per-hour is for cars - enables operators and IT administrators to quickly estimate the energy efficiency of their data centers, compare the results against other data centers, and determine if any energy efficiency improvements can be made or if there are potential problems. The PUE metric - which is the ratio of a facility's total power to the power being drawn by IT equipment - requires complete knowledge and understanding of each component in the data center and its power consumption.

The newest PUE standard published by The Green Grid outlines three levels of measuring data center energy:

-- Basic (formerly called Level 1) -- Manual, infrequent collection and analysis of data.

-- Intermediate (formerly called Level 2) -- Daily automated data collection and analysis, but at the facility level.

-- Advanced (formerly called Level 3) -- Continuous, automated data collection and analysis at the device level.

An Advanced/Level 3 power picture can be created with EDSA's Paladin(R) Live(TM) power analytics software, which tracks and measures a facility's electrical infrastructure, combined with Raritan's IT device-level collection and analysis solutions - Power IQ(TM) Energy Management software and Dominion(R) PX intelligent power strips.

"Data Center Operators are focused today on three primary issues: power, space and cooling," said Kevin Meagher, Chief Technology Officer at EDSA, the leading provider of software tools for electrical power systems design and reliability management. "This drives asset management, e.g. the ability to tell which outlets are in use and which are available. This, in turn, guides capacity planning (space) and heat being generated (cooling). The Green Grid's PUE creates a common reference point that makes it possible for data center operators to start making important assessments of their facilities, as well as their going-forward strategies for reducing energy usage. Data center operators no longer have to be in the dark about their energy efficiency."

EDSA's Paladin Solutions

Paladin(R) Live(TM) is the only electrical power system management platform capable of maintaining an uninterrupted, 360° view of electrical power infrastructures. It intelligently predicts when and where vulnerabilities have the potential to occur, and sends proper notifications to the right people at the right time. The Paladin Live PUE-DCiE Advisor feature attacks the problem of energy inefficiency in two ways: first, the Company's Paladin(R) DesignBase(TM) computer-aided design (CAD) modeler allows power systems engineers to design, simulate, and analyze the power systems model to optimize energy usage prior to construction. Once the facility is operational, EDSA's Paladin Live platform continually diagnoses the facility's performance by benchmarking it back against the design model. This continual comparison of design specifications with actual operating parameters helps to ensure that anomalies are quickly identified, isolated, and resolved.

Raritan's Power Management Solutions

Raritan's power management solutions help data center managers gain insights on energy usage and costs and identify areas for improvement. Raritan's Power IQ(TM) Energy Management software tracks energy consumption and generates energy usage reports based on all types power information gathered at the IT device level, such as energy costs, carbon emissions, and a rack's electrical capacity. Power IQ collects device-level power consumption information from servers and other IT devices plugged into intelligent power distribution units (PDUs), including Raritan's Dominion(R) PX and a wide range of third-party rack PDUs. The software also tracks data center temperature and humidity information collected by Raritan's environmental sensors.

About EDSA Micro Corporation

EDSA develops software solutions for the computer-aided design, modeling, real-time analysis, energy management, and preventative maintenance of complex electrical power systems. For more than 25 years, the Company's Paladin(R) software products have been used in thousands of commercial, industrial, governmental, and military applications worldwide, to protect more than $100 billion in customer assets, while reducing their energy consumption. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., the Company maintains sales, distribution, and support offices around the world. For more information about EDSA and its products, visit www.edsa.com.

About Raritan (Raritan.com)

Raritan provides secure IT infrastructure management solutions that increase data center efficiency and productivity by delivering integrated in- band and out-of-band energy management, server access and control. Raritan's power management software, intelligent PDU, environmental sensors, KVM, serial console and centralized management products are in use in more than 50,000 locations worldwide. Raritan's OEM division provides embedded hardware and firmware for server and client management, including intelligent energy management, KVM over IP, IPMI and other industry standards-based management applications. Based in Somerset, N.J., Raritan has offices worldwide serving 76 countries. For more information, please visit Raritan.com

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    Uptime Institute's LEAN, CLEAN and GREEN Symposium
    EDSA Booth #3 & Raritan Booth #212

SOURCE Raritan Inc. and EDSA Micro Corporation