IT configuration management firm Tideway Systems is factoring energy into the roster of metrics it measures. The company will this week publish guidelines to help IT departments improve the way they allocate datacentre resources.

Power management has become an increasing problem for IT chiefs in recent years as soaring energy prices and the trend towards ultra-dense equipment have raised bills.

Tideway said that by measuring application needs against known power requirements of servers it could help firms improve utilisation. “Businesses that are information-intensive consume a huge amount of power,” said Tideway marketing vice-president Kosten Metreweli. “We can find hardware, identify it and know about its power consumption and heat dissipation characteristics. It helps customers to consider consolidating applications to make hardware run more effectively.”

Configuration and asset monitoring tools are being widely deployed to map complex IT infrastructures. “The horror [we felt when we deployed Tideway and other tools] was how much we had,” said Stephen Ashton, Dresdner Kleinwort’s director of global IT business management.

Separately, Corel has launched a campaign to boost software asset management (SAM), especially among medium-sized firms. Its Get Compliant scheme provides information to help firms comply with the law and adopt best practices to manage the lifecycle of licences.