Nortel Goes Green, Calculates Energy Efficiency

Nortel Networks on Tuesday announced the general availability of the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator (NEEC), a software tool that gives actual read outs of Nortel's networking gear from its main competitor, aka Cisco Systems, in an attempt to illustrate power requirements.

For VARs, the calculator adds another tool in their arsenal that can show concerned customers exactly how much power certain solutions will consume and provide insight into where power consumption can be trimmed for energy efficiency.

According to Wes Durow, vice president of global enterprise marketing, energy and environmental concerns are at a tipping point, and VARs are looking at new ways to show their customers where power savings can occur.

"How do I respond to customers where there is an energy requirement?" Durow said many VARs are asking, adding that customers are also asking "We've got no more power, or we've got a fixed budget for power can you help us?"

Durow said the calculator is now available online at no charge for VARs and end customers to help them customize deployment scenarios based on networking configurations, equipment and the associated cooling costs, local power costs and other factors. He said it enables users to calculate their network energy requirements.

"The energy piece is at a tipping point," he said.

The NEEC lets users plug in energy rates based on their location and look into the future to see views of how much energy certain products will consume over time. It also estimates the cost of energy offered over periods of time, Durow said.

For VARs, that level of insight into power consumption can be a differentiator against a competitor, Durow said. VARs can show their customers roughly how much power solutions will consume in certain configurations, whether by active ports, added components and other factors.

"Energy efficiency can be a key differentiator," Durow said. "VARs can enable clients to do more and reinforce that with the results. There's hardly a major or a minor company that doesn't have a green initiative right now."

Nortel Partners agreed.

"Energy efficiency is top of mind among many customers and the ability to chart their energy needs now is an extremely important consideration for purchasing decisions," John Wrona, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Tonawanda, N.Y.-based solution provider Ronco Communications and Electronics Inc. "The Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator is very user-friendly and simple, yet is precise in its ability to chart networking energy requirements. Most importantly, it is helping us close deals with customers. Nortel has been on a tear recently and their message that their switching products offer superior performance and consume half the power over their primary competition has struck a chord."

Recent research by the Cutter Consortium, an IT advisory and research firm, found that green is a growing concern among companies. The survey found that 50 percent of companies that currently don't have a long-term strategic green initiative plan to have one in place within the next two years. Similarly, the survey found that 37 percent of organizations in the U.S. have a plan to reduce the environmental footprint of their IT infrastructure.

The survey also revealed that plans to cut power consumption through IT are starting to take hold. The survey found 31 percent of organizations have policies to reduce the energy consumed by their IT infrastructures, while 17 percent plan to create such policies in 2008. Another 17 percent plan to have policies to reduce IT energy consumption after this year.

Additionally, 28 percent of companies said their organizations already have policies in place to purchase energy-efficient IT hardware, while 15 percent will create a policy this year and 17 percent said they will create a policy after this year. In the same vein, 45 percent of companies polled said they have policies in place to change employees IT practices to reduce energy consumption, while another 30 percent plan to have similar policies in place during or after this year.