POWER6 - More Power With Less Power

Not only does the POWER6 processor provide a greatly increased processing rating, but has also gained recognition in proving that it is far more efficient in the way it uses power to run.

The POWER6 processor has several new features, including:

• power trending,
• power saver mode, and
• thermal reporting.

So what do these features do exactly?

Power Trending collects information to predict the power consumption of the data centre at various times of the day, week, or month. It uses that information to identify peak times, manage loads when electrical demands or costs are high, and if the system supports power capping, determine appropriate power caps.

Power Saver Mode provides a way to save power by being able to drop the voltage and frequency to a fixed percentage when the server is being underutilized.

Thermal Reporting helps identify server “hot-spots” that need attention. You can monitor the measured ambient temperature and a calculated exhaust heat index temperature via Active Energy Manager.

This all adds up to POWER6 technology being power efficient and a green technology.

See also: IBM EnergyScale for POWER6 Processor-Based Systems (PDF)