Overview

The baseline is the amount of energy that devices use without centralized power management. It is a critical factor both in determining initial power management policies and in post-enforcement reporting. Only with an accurate baseline can you obtain reliable results when measuring savings from policy enforcement.

When measuring savings achieved through policy enforcement, an accurate starting point, or baseline, is critical. This article describes the concepts for determining the baseline for your network.

Process

For PC and Mac client agents in the Surveyor system, you complete the following baseline data collection process after installation but before enforcing power management policies.

1. Run the system with computers using the default policy (Baseline Data Collection) for several weeks of regular network operation. During this time, clients report their use to the server, and the energy use is measured, but no policies are enforced.
   
   
2. On the Verdiem menu , click on Analytics. Generate an Activity: Computer Power States report that shows the number of clients reporting to the server each day during that period, along with user activity.

   Important: The data displayed in the Activity: Computer Power States report is aggregated and summarized data. The data is aggregated during a summarization process. You will need to schedule and run the summarization process to make the data available for reports. The scheduling frequency you choose will depend on how current you want the data to be in your reports. For more information about the summarization process, refer to About Data Summarization.

3. From the Activity: Computer Power States report, select a two-week period during which a consistent number of clients reported to the server each day. Make sure this two-week period meets the requirements:
   
   
   • All days must reflect regular business operation. Holidays, hardware transitions, power outages, and other events that affect standard computer operation skew the data collected, producing an inaccurate baseline.
     
     
   • The Activity: Computer Power States report should present a consistent number of devices reporting to the server, and the number should be 80% or more of the licensed devices.
     
     
4. From the Activity: Computer Power States report, find the start and end date for your baseline period, or determine the percentages of time per day that devices are in the On, Sleep, or Off power states. You can then use these numbers to set the baseline value for each device. For more details, refer to Setting the Baseline Value for Devices.
   
   

For EnergyWise devices, the baseline energy use levels are calculated automatically, using the following criteria.

• Devices are assumed to be always on at power level 10.
• Power draw depends on the device and its version, with values hard-coded into the
  device.