Nature & Environment

Virginia Tech Spin-off Company MiserWare Offers Free Product to Measure Carbon Footprint

Staff Reporter
First Posted: Apr 21, 2012 03:17 PM EDT

MiserWare, a spin-off company of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, is launching a free product that allows companies or individuals to measure their carbon footprint in terms of total power usage.

According to MiserWare Chief Executive Officer Kirk W. Cameron, https://www.cs.vt.edu/user/cameron, an associate professor of computer science at Virginia Tech and a pioneer of power measurement and management software, the product, Granola Enterprise 5.0, is redesigned in response to enterprise and datacenter clients.

MiserWare developed Granola Enterprise to empower organizations to immediately establish the baseline power consumption for their entire information technology infrastructure. From laptops to PCs to the datacenter, organizations can quickly and easily evaluate their energy footprint without the need for expensive hardware.

"Our clients are often mandated to report information technology power use," Cameron elaborated. "A free account now gives organizations access to their energy footprint, making it easy to identify energy waste and evaluate power management options."

In addition to the expanded measurement capabilities, Granola Enterprise offers industry-leading options for energy savings. Joseph Turner, co-founder and vice president of engineering, said that while other products save energy by simply turning systems off when not in use, Granola Enterprise saves up to 35 percent more by also reducing energy waste while systems are in use.

"Our patent-pending performance guarantee technology ensures energy savings with no loss of availability or performance," said Turner. "That's why our software is used by clients in all situations from critical datacenter environments to office PCs to battery-powered mobile workforces."

"According to Cameron, the U.S. National Geospatial Agency is a client and a number of other universities, including University of California at Santa Barbara and Virginia Tech, use or plan to use the software to measure and reduce their information technology carbon footprints."

Source: Virginia Tech

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