Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) vendor Power Assure has added a new service to its portfolio, offering data center operators to measure real power consumption of the IT equipment their facilities support.

Data centers are notoriously built to accommodate “nameplate” power consumption specified by server manufacturers. Their actual power consumption is often much less than the spec, which results in underutilized power capacity in data centers.

Power Assure president and CEO Brad Wurtz said the company had measured hundreds of servers and found that on average, manufacturers’ power-consumption specs are 40-60% too high.

“This naturally results in power and space requirements being overstated, thereby creating a situation where the organization will outgrow its calculated power and space capacity far sooner than it will in actual use,” he said.

With the new PAR4 Measurement Service, for about US$2,500 (the price vendor quoted for 10 servers), a Power Assure technician will spend two days in a client’s data center and report how much power their servers consume when they are idle, loaded or at peak utilization. They will draw up a report on their findings but will also provide access to Power Assure’s EM/4 Energy Management Dashboard for performance monitoring and comparisons.

Customers will also get an option and a path to upgrade to EM/4’s capacity planning, return-on-investment and lifecycle analytics capabilities.