Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced its membership in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (www.climatesaverscomputing.org), a broad-based environmental effort launched in June to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The initiative promotes the adoption of energy-efficient computing and power management worldwide. It is supported by more than 90 technology, energy and environmental organizations including Dell, EDS, Google, the EPA, HP, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, PG&E and the World Wildlife Fund.

Today, 50 percent or more of all data centers are functionally obsolete in terms of power and cooling capacity. Data center power and cooling costs represent $40 billion in worldwide spending; up from $5 billion in 1996. There is an ever-increasing awareness of the need to reduce energy and power consumption, both for cost savings and environmental purposes.

Virtual Iron offers server virtualization software that enables data centers to increase server utilization and reduce wasted computing resources, thereby reducing both hardware and power and cooling requirements. The software's advanced policy-based management and workload migration capabilities also enable data center administrators to automatically turn servers on and off as computing needs dictate, further driving energy efficiencies.

"Data center power and cooling management and efficiency have become a top priority for our customers across the world," said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at Virtual Iron. "Server virtualization is one of the many ways that companies can begin to address this very serious issue and Virtual Iron is proud to be part of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative."

Virtual Iron and Intel, a founding member of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, recently hosted a Webcast about how to reduce data center power and cooling requirements. The program presented the latest power and cooling trends and highlighted best practices for data center power and cooling management. It also discussed the importance of server virtualization as an efficient cost and power management step that can have an immediate impact on today's data center cooling crisis. To view the Webcast, please click here.

About the Climate Savers Computing Initiative

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations dedicated to improving the power efficiency and reducing the energy consumption of computers. By producing and purchasing power-efficient products, our goal is to achieve a 50 percent reduction in power consumption by computers by 2010. For more information, visit www.climatesaverscomputing.org.