Sentilla is now a member of a data center energy efficiency consortium, known as The Green Grid. With data centers consuming over 1.5% of the United States' electricity according to the EPA, lots of people are interested in how to reduce demand in the data center. To better understand the task at hand, companies have joined forces to make data centers more efficient.

At Sentilla, joining The Green Grid comes on the heels of our Sentilla Energy Manager for Data Centers product announcement. One of my philosophies in the design of the Sentilla Energy Manager was a focus on integration -- it isn't just about collecting data, it is what you DO with the data after you collect it. That includes both analysis and advice, as well as systemwide synthesis such that energy is a first class citizen when making data center operational decisions.

With The Green Grid, we're focused on partnerships with other software and system vendors, OEMs, data center managers, and directors of sustainability. We're part of an ecosystem focused on sustainability, and the work of The Green Grid, their studies, and their meetings (The Green Grid technical forum is this week in San Jose) provide all of us with ways to work together. After all, with every IT system working together to curb energy demand, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

Finally, most important is end customers -- having a forum to discuss how our data centers become more energy efficient, and working to provide energy solutions that have a net reduction in operating cost. Before you can become more energy efficient, you have to measure and benchmark where you're at (and, of course, the Sentilla Energy Manager automates that process for you). We're committed to one of the key goals of The Green Grid -- establishing the set of measurement standards that provide actionable energy information; especially information with fine granularity that maps out your entire data center so it is crystal clear what to DO next.