• Ongoing Projects
• Intelligent Energy Management for Server Systems (EMSIS)

Together with its partners Sojus Software and Batchworks, the Borderstep Institute is developing, with the EMSIS project, an intelligent energy management system for server systems that can switch them on and off automatically, securely and in line with demand. The system takes into account individually defined technical, operational and application-specific requirements and determines when a server can be switched off or reactivated.

This reduces energy consumption and operating costs without compromising the availability or stability of IT operations. EMSIS thus lays the foundations for more energy-efficient operation of IT infrastructures and helps data centres and businesses meet increasing energy efficiency requirements.

Many servers are running unnecessarily

In companies and data centres, many servers run round the clock. This is the case even when, for extended periods, they are executing processes that are of little relevance to day-to-day operations. According to estimates available to date, up to 30 percent of servers are so-called ‘comatose servers’.

Although these consume energy, they make no productive contribution. At the same time, numerous applications are only required during business hours or within specific time slots. Nevertheless, the underlying servers usually remain in continuous operation.

There is a lack of energy-efficient solutions

Technically, automated server shutdown and restart would already be possible today. In practice, however, there is a lack of commercially available, energy-optimized solutions that can reliably determine when a server can be safely shut down and restarted without disrupting ongoing IT operations.

Added to this is the concern among many operators that servers may not restart properly after being shut down. While such concerns are generally unfounded with professional enterprise hardware, there are currently no systems in place to monitor and safeguard the process.

Server systems offer significant potential for cost savings

Yet the potential for savings is considerable: In Germany alone, approximately 2.4 million servers are in operation. If unused servers were consistently and safely shut down, approximately one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved annually. Furthermore, the Energy Efficiency Act is raising the bar for energy-efficient data center operations.

To address this, EMSIS is developing a practical, scalable, and modular solution. In this way, the project contributes to making digitisation more energy-efficient and strengthening the sustainability of data centers and IT infrastructures.