Top Use Cases for Power Management

Explore the top use cases for BigFix Power Management, including reducing energy costs through power policies, tracking and reporting power consumption, scheduling Wake-on-LAN for off-hours maintenance, detecting PC Insomnia, and enabling end-user self-service through the client-side dashboard.

Here are the top use cases for BigFix Power Management:
  1. Enforce Energy Savings at Scale with Power Profiles
    This is the guide's primary use case. Administrators can deploy single or time-based multiple power profiles across thousands of endpoints to enforce monitor standby, system standby, and scheduled power-off policies. The Power Profile Wizard makes this straightforward, and the Model Power Savings report lets you run what-if scenarios against real usage data before committing — making the business case before deployment.
  2. Eliminate Wasted Idle Power with PC Insomnia Prevention
    Many endpoints fail to enter low-power states because rogue applications prevent sleep. The Manage PC Insomnia Fixlets actively detect and remediate this by forcing computers into standby or hibernation once the idle threshold is reached. This use case is valuable for organizations that have set power policies but aren't seeing the expected savings — PC Insomnia is typically the hidden culprit.
  3. Schedule Wake-on-LAN for Off-Hours Maintenance
    Using the Schedule Wake-on-LAN Wizard, IT teams can wake fleets of endpoints outside office hours for patching, backups, or compliance scans — without leaving machines powered on all day. Combined with Last Man Standing (which keeps at least one machine per subnet always available as a WoL forwarder) and the WoL Medic utility, this works across complex multi-subnet enterprise networks without requiring router reconfiguration.
  4. Track and Report Power Consumption for Sustainability and Chargebacks
    The Power Consumption Summary dashboard and Web Reports together provide management-level visibility into aggregate power usage, PM Efficiency Ratings, cost, and CO₂ savings across the entire deployment. This supports sustainability reporting, executive dashboards, and IT cost chargeback scenarios where teams need to demonstrate measurable impact.
  5. Model and Baseline Power Savings Before Policy Changes
    Before rolling out a new power policy, administrators can use the Model Power Savings report to simulate savings projections based on the last two weeks of actual power state data per agent. This "what-if" capability lets teams compare profiles, justify initiatives to stakeholders, and set realistic savings targets — making it a critical use case for any organization with a formal energy or cost-reduction program.