Definitions
This section defines common Power Management terms, including power states (Active, Idle, Standby, and Power Off), Wake-on-LAN, Wake-from-Standby, and power efficiency metrics.
- Active power state
- A computer is in the Active power state when a user is working on the computer and is using one of the input devices (specifically the mouse or keyboard). The computer is considered to be using full power in this state.
- CO2 Emissions
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the primary greenhouse gases and power generation is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted per kWh generated varies significantly based on how the electricity is generated. For example, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide, but coal-fired power plants emit significant carbon dioxide.
- Idle power state
- A computer in this state uses full power, but the user is not actively interacting with the system. In many cases, the idle power state is considered to be wasted electricity because the computer consumes full power while not being actively used.
- Power® off state
- The computer is off.
- Power® States
- System Power® States define the overall power consumption of a system. BigFix Power® Management tracks four main power states: Active, Idle, Standby or Hibernation, and Power® Off. See the definition entries for Active, Idle, Standby, and Power-off.
- Price per kWh
- This is the amount you pay for electricity. One kWh is equal to 1,000 watts used for one hour. As a reference point, a standard desktop and monitor runs for approximately six hours on one kWh of electricity. A typical cost for a kWh is $0.10 in many regions of North America. However, electricity costs vary significantly depending on region and power provider, and different computer models have different power usage.
- Standby power state
-
Also known as Sleep or Hibernation, this is the low-power mode in which the user's working session is saved to memory or to disk.
- Wake-on-LAN
- Wake-on-LAN (WoL) is a standard mechanism for waking computers by sending them a specific network packet that is known as the magic packet. Wake-on-LAN is difficult in many network environments because of network restrictions regarding broadcasts from other subnets. BigFix Power Management handles these complexities by sending WoL packets from nearby agents in the same subnet.
- Wake-from-Standby
- Windows™ and other operating systems allow applications to wake a computer from standby at predefined times. Using Wake-from-Standby, a computer wakes itself without the need for Wake-on-LAN.