Setting of Model Wattage data

One of the more time consuming tasks required when setting up eiPower Saver Solution is the setting of wattage values for each of the models in your organisation. In order to get an accurate energy usage figure for you IT infrastructure it is neccessary to have accurate wattage values for all models of computers and monitors found in your organisation. The gathering of this data - either from manufacturer specifications, through direct measurement or supplied by ENTISP - can take significant time and effort.

While most people are interested in eventually achieving accurate energy usage figures for their IT infrastructure, they are also want to start running the eiPower Saver reports and getting some approximate figures as soon as possible. These initial figures can give people a rough idea of the energy savings they are achieving and allows them to validate that the eiPower solution is working as planned.

After the eiPower Saver agent has been rolled out to client computers the list of computer and monitor models can be created automatically by running the Models Mapping Task. Most organisations have a fairly hetrogenous desktop environment and since the Models Mapping Task creates a model resource for each distinct model found in the environment a large number of computer and monitors models can get created.

With so many different models it can be a time consuming task to gather accurate wattage values for all models however if there is no wattage data for a model then none of the computers (or monitors) of that model will be included in the eiPower saver reports. In order to start getting energy usage figures from the eiPower reports it is necessary to have wattage figures for most (ideally all) models in your organisation, however these figures do not have to be highly accurate - at least not initially. Generally it is much better to have slightly inaccurate wattage values for a model rather than having no wattage values.

To get started a good approach is to enter approximate wattage figures that are based on the general type of equipment. For example most modern business laptops computer will use around 40Watts, a modern desktop around 100Watts, a 20inch LCD monitor around 25 watts and so on. Although these figures will not be exact for each of the models in your organisation they are close enough to perform inital calculations and get an idea of energy usage.

eiPower has the ability to export/import the models wattage data to/from a CSV which makes it much easier to edit the wattage data. Using this facility it is straight forward to export the list of models generated by the Models Mapping Task and to enter approximate wattage values for each of these models using MS Excel and then to import this data back into eiPower Saver Solution.

Although the data is not entirely accurate this will allow you to start running the energy usage reports and start getting results. As accurate wattage data for each model becomes the new data can be entered and the reports will become more accurate.