Determining power consumption in IT networks

• US 20070094527A1
• Filed: 07/26/2006
• Published: 04/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Trenz, Thomas, Frietsch, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 7,634,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/340
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/266 Arrangements to supply power to external peripherals either directly from the computer or under computer control, e.g. supply of power through the communication port, computer controlled power-strips
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/14 Calling by using pulses

Abstract

A method is provided of determining total electric power consumption of a managed IT network including network devices having a management-addressable address. An autodiscovery tool is run to discover the network devices of the managed IT network. Management requests are directed to the management-addressable addresses of the network devices to obtain the electric power consumption values of the network devices. The electric power consumption values returned by the network devices are centrally collected, and the total electric power consumption of the managed IT network is calculated by adding the electric power consumption values of the network devices.

Claims

1. A method of determining total electric power consumption of a managed IT network comprising network devices having a management-addressable address, the method comprising:

running an autodiscovery tool to discover the network devices of the managed IT network,

directing management requests to the management-addressable addresses of the network devices to obtain the electric power consumption values of the network devices,

centrally collecting the electric power consumption values returned by the network devices, and

calculating the total electric power consumption of the managed IT network by adding the electric power consumption values of the network devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the electric power consumption of each network device is a current electric power consumption measured by a sensor.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein an alarm is triggered in response to a current electric power consumption being outside a prescribed range of values.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the total electric power consumption is determined at different points of time and a statistical evaluation of the total electric power consumption values associated with the different points of time is performed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the electric power consumption value returned by a network device is a nominal electric power consumption value.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the nominal electric power consumption value of a network device is determined by measuring the current electric power consumption of a device at different points of time and calculating an average thereof.

7. A computer system for determining total electric power consumption of a managed IT network comprising network devices having a management-addressable address, the computer system being programmed to:

run an autodiscovery tool to discover the network devices of the managed IT network,

direct management requests to the management-addressable addresses of the network devices to obtain the electric power consumption values of the network devices,

centrally collect the electric power consumption values returned by the network devices, and

calculate the total electric power consumption of the managed IT network by adding the electric power consumption values of the network devices.

8. A computer program product which is either in the form of a machine-readable medium with program code stored on it, or in the form of a propagated signal comprising a representation of program code, wherein the program code is arranged to carry out a method, when executed on a computer system, of determining total electric power consumption of a managed IT network comprising network devices having a management-addressable address, the method comprising:

running an autodiscovery tool to discover the network devices of the managed IT network,

directing management requests to the management-addressable addresses of the network devices to obtain the electric power consumption values of the network devices,

centrally collecting the electric power consumption values returned by the network devices, and

calculating the total electric power consumption of the managed IT network by adding the electric power consumption values of the network devices.