Power Saving Promise Brings JouleX $17m Investment

At a time when venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are being careful where they invest their money, innovative cost-saving products seem to be catching their imaginations.

Consequently, JouleX, a company that specialises in monitoring data centre power consumption, has just received $17 million (£10.5m) in investment capital from Flybridge Capital Partners, Intel Capital and Sigma Partners. The company already has backing from Target Partners and TechOperators.

Potential Savings From Improved Configurations

JouleX Energy Manager (JEM) is a network-based, agentless package that measures energy consumption in the data centre at the device or system level. The company claims that this can result in savings of up to 60 percent without adversely affecting availability.

The agentless nature of the software means that installation is easier but it also offers proofing against problems that can occur when patches and upgrades are made within the data centre. The lack of an agent in the equation means one less variable in the pre-application test cycle.

At a time when electricity costs are beginning to leap upwards and government schemes are set to kick in, JEM allows systems managers to make device-to-device and system-to-system comparisons to show the energy cost impact of changes in the infrastructure. This can also help during procurement by showing the most energy efficient configurations.

This, JouleX says, is a far better way to identify real power consumption savings based on actual energy demand, rather than relying on manufacturers’ “best-case” faceplate information.

“JouleX is the first company to successfully address the gap that has long existed in enterprise energy management,” said John Mandile, managing director at Sigma Partners. “The JouleX team has set a new industry standard in terms of developing an innovative, yet practical and cost-effective solution that focuses on energy waste and reduction within the enterprise and then has the technology acumen to control it.”

The company, which currently has 100 customers in the US and Europe, plans to use the new-found investment to expand its development and sales efforts into growth markets around the world. JouleX also has JEM versions tailored for distributed offices and for managing desktop PCs.