Breakthrough Software Provides Sensible First Step to Solving the Data
Center Power Crisis, with Immediate Savings on Electricity and Costs of as
Much as 50 Percent
SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Cassatt(R) Corporation, a
leader in making data centers more efficient, today unveiled the new
Cassatt Active Response product line to help customers "go green" in their
data centers. As more and more companies plan long-term strategies to
reduce the power usage and carbon footprints of their data centers, Cassatt
Active Response provides a sensible first step that can be quickly and
non-invasively deployed to reduce the energy consumption of servers by as
much as 50 percent. By actively powering servers on and off as needed, and
pooling physical and virtual server resources, the Cassatt Active Response
product line not only greatly improves energy efficiency, it also increases
application availability, security, and responsiveness to changing business
needs.
Also announced today (see separate release "Cassatt Announces Support
from Industry Leaders For Its New Active Response Product Line to Help
Companies 'Go Green' in Their Data Centers"), the Cassatt Active Response
product line has garnered support from a wide range of industry leaders,
including BearingPoint, Citrix, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Tata Consultancy
Services, and TELADATA.
The new Cassatt Active Response product line combines Cassatt's Active
Power Management(TM) and utility computing technologies based on Cassatt
Collage(TM) into a single software suite. Cassatt Active Response will have
four editions, each providing progressively more capabilities. Customers
can start with a stand-alone edition aimed exclusively at improving energy
efficiency. They can then progressively expand their use of Cassatt by
upgrading to additional editions or by applying additional policy-based
controls to more servers across their organizations. The new product
offering gives customer more choice in adopting and expanding the benefits
of Cassatt to make their data centers more efficient, more green, and more
responsive.
Immediate On-ramp to Improved Energy Efficiency
Cassatt Active Response, Standard Edition, is a new product exclusively
focused on giving customers an immediate starting point for improving
energy efficiency. Based upon early work with customers, Standard Edition
is expected to deliver a return-on-investment (ROI) of nearly 300% over
three years. As customers desire more energy savings, better utilization of
server assets, and increased application availability, they can start with
or upgrade to Cassatt Active Response, Premium Edition and Cassatt Active
Response, Data Center Edition, which provide more extensive features and
improved savings. In 2008, Cassatt will add a fourth edition to the product
line, Cassatt Active Response, Enterprise Edition, enabling an enterprise
to share and optimize its resources across multiple data centers in
different geographies.
"Since its founding in 2003, Cassatt has been focused on providing
breakthrough technology to revolutionize how data centers are run, and to
drastically reduce their cost structures," said Bill Coleman, chairman and
CEO of Cassatt Corp. "The new Cassatt Active Response product line gives
customers a way to move toward a 'green' data center in incremental steps.
Customers have been searching for ways to get started going green without
having to make huge investments in new hardware and software, disrupting
their current operations, or installing invasive technologies. Cassatt can
help them today and provide compelling ROI at each step along the way."
Policy-Based Control: Better Use of Data Center Resources, Reduced Risk
of Attack
Typically, servers that deliver applications run hot 24 by 7 and their
failover systems remain always-on, costing millions of dollars to maintain
in terms of real estate, hardware, duplicate software licenses and
maintenance contracts, and cooling. Many servers, however, especially in
development and test centers, scale-out production environments, failover,
and disaster recovery sites, sit idle for long periods until they are
needed. The better way to manage these servers is to actively control them
with innovative technology that uses policy-based controls to safely turn
servers off when idle or not needed and then back on when demand warrants.
Cassatt Active Response allows administrators to set policies to turn
servers off and on, apply policies to pool all server resources, and invoke
policies to prioritize the delivery of applications. The underlying
technology in Cassatt Active Response that makes it safe to turn servers
off and on is called Active Power Management. The technology employs a
sophisticated policy engine that takes into account server priorities and
needs, server interrelationships, application dependencies and
relationships, and individual server power consumption in deciding when to
power-down and power-up machines. It takes into account variables such as
peak and off-peak power schedules, time-of-day, and emergencies such as
"demand curtailment" mandates from power companies to reduce electrical
consumption - for example, on hot summer weekdays. The technology
determines which servers to power down, and for how long, and then safely
handles application requirements before turning them off and back on as
application demand warrants.
As servers are needed again, or as failover systems are needed to
expand the pool of available resources to meet service level agreements for
application delivery, the technology applies the same logic and priorities
to power those servers back on as appropriate. In addition, by turning
servers off during hours when they aren't being used, Cassatt helps reduce
the risk of virus attacks or unauthorized access to servers during the
exact times when they are most likely to be attacked.
Unique Difference of the Cassatt Active Response Product Line
What sets the Cassatt Active Response product line apart from any other
approach is the way in which the underlying Active Power Management
technology intelligently works with existing resources in the data center.
The technology applies best-practice principles that are:
-- Policy-Based - Administrators can apply appropriate business and
operational policies and priorities to determine when, where, and how
to power down and power up servers, rather than leave then running 24
by 7 or relying on "hard-wired" power decisions. Polices can also
prioritize the delivery of applications.
-- Application Aware - Knows when and how applications must be shut down
and brought back up systematically, and is aware of application
interdependencies shared across multiple servers.
-- Hardware and Software Independent - Runs on any platform, works with
any virtual or physical server (including blade servers), requires no
change to existing hardware or software configurations, and is
compatible with existing power distribution equipment.
Making It Easier for Customers to Adopt and Expand the Benefits of
Cassatt
The four editions of the Cassatt Active Response product line deliver
increased energy savings, better utilization of server assets, and
increased application availability, while making it easier for customers to
adopt incrementally. The product line includes:
-- Cassatt Active Response, Standard Edition - For increased energy
efficiency. Customers can start with a focused, easy-to-implement
project around energy efficiency using Cassatt Active Response,
Standard Edition, which delivers drastic reductions in power and
cooling costs with a minimum of complexity at a price point that make
adoption cost-effective and return-on-investment fast. Standard
Edition provides big benefits in very cyclical compute environments, in
reducing energy usage of disaster recovery equipment, and in data
centers where power usage is at its maximum. With Cassatt Active
Response, Standard Edition, customers can expect to save as much as 50
percent on their current power and cooling costs and achieve nearly
300% ROI over three years. Customers with as few as 200 servers in a
specific lab can save over $100,000 over three years using Standard
Edition, while eliminating 650 tons of carbon emissions, the equivalent
to removing 110 cars from the road.
-- Cassatt Active Response, Premium Edition - For increased energy
efficiency and application resiliency. Customers can upgrade to Cassatt
Active Response, Premium Edition, which pools and allocates hardware
and software as needed by applications at only a fraction of the cost
of traditional high-availability (HA) approaches. Premium Edition is
ideal for workgroups or sets of related applications with off-setting
cyclical workloads like batch applications and ERP that can benefit
from sharing common virtual and physical resources, reducing the need
for separate, dedicated back-up systems. Premium Edition includes all
capabilities of the Standard Edition. Premium Edition can provide
"always-available" capability for priority applications at only 12 to
33 percent of typical HA costs.
-- Cassatt Active Response, Data Center Edition - For increased energy
efficiency, high application availability, and server workload
management in production environments. As customers look to change the
broader management of their data centers to be more dynamic,
responsive, and make better use of all of their hardware and software
assets, they can move to Cassatt Active Response, Data Center Edition.
Data Center Edition provides improved energy efficiency and application
availability benefits from the Standard and Premium Editions, and also
adds capabilities to control networks and provides redundancy of the
Cassatt management capability through a back-up control node. Data
Center Edition is ideally suited for production environments in which
all components need high availability to deliver required service
levels to the business. Data Center Edition can cut 36 to 45 percent
of your entire data center capital and operational expenses.
-- Cassatt Active Response, Enterprise Edition - For optimal Control of
all data center resources throughout an organization and across
multiple geographies. Enterprise Edition will draw upon the
capabilities of Standard, Premium, and Data Center editions. The
product will be ideal for large, global organizations that want to
leverage the pool of physical and virtual computing resources available
across multiple geographies. Or, companies can "follow the moon" and
support applications using the most efficient resources from
geographically distinct data centers, leveraging time-based shifts in
energy prices and computing demand. Companies will be able to use
Enterprise Edition to provide application services that can be
delivered to anyone, anywhere, independent of the location or origin of
the underlying infrastructure.
"Pooling your IT resources and then using software to intelligently and
actively control them can create a real shift in the economics of running a
data center," said Michelle Bailey, research vice president for IDC. "With
products like Cassatt Active Response, customers can start to see the type
of energy efficiency, application availability, and data center
responsiveness that previously were only possible by having much higher
levels of infrastructure and operations investment. And, by allowing
customers to begin with a concrete starting point around managing their
power usage, Cassatt makes a customer's first step in this process easier,
immediately relevant, and financially viable," Bailey said.
Get Started By Calculating Your Potential ROI
Customers can easily estimate their energy savings using the energy
savings calculator at http://www.cassatt.com or they can get more detailed
evaluation of their current energy consumption by requesting an Active
Assessment from Cassatt.
Pricing and Availability
Cassatt Active Response 5.0, Standard Edition, will be available on
November 16, 2007. Pricing starts at $200 per managed machine. Cassatt
Active Response 5.0, Premium Edition, is available today. Pricing starts at
$1,250 per managed machine. Cassatt Active Response 5.0, Data Center
Edition, is available today. Pricing starts at $2,500 per managed machine.
Cassatt Active Response, Enterprise Edition, will be available in the
second half of 2008.
Upcoming Webcast with Leading Analyst about First Steps toward Energy
Efficiency
Cassatt is hosting a webcast on Tuesday, November 6, at 10 a.m. Pacific
time featuring one of the industry's expert analysts on green IT. The
webcast will review potential high-impact first steps toward energy
efficiency in your data center. To register for the webcast, go here:
http://www.cassatt.com/greenITwebcast/ .
About Cassatt Corporation
Cassatt helps companies run a green data center with innovative
technologies and software solutions to maximize energy and operational
efficiencies. The Cassatt Active Response product line is based on patent-
pending Active Power Management technology that safely and intelligently
powers servers off and on, based on demand, cutting an organization's
energy usage by as much as 50 percent. Cassatt is based in San Jose,
Calif., and is on the web at cassatt.com.
Media Contact:
Steve Eisenstadt
Page One PR
+1-919-781-8096
steve@pageonepr.com
Copyright (C) 2007 Cassatt Corporation. All rights reserved. Cassatt is
a registered trademark and Cassatt Active Power Management and Cassatt
Collage are trademarks of Cassatt Corporation. Third party marks and brands
are the property of their respective holders.
SOURCE Cassatt Corporation
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Related links:
http://www.cassatt.com
CONTACT:
Steve Eisenstadt of Page One PR,
+1-919-781-8096, steve@pageonepr.com
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