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BigFix makes government's power management mandate more palatable

For those of you readers who work within federal government agencies and have been faced with meeting mandated conservation policies, software vendor BigFix has negotiated a deal with the General Services Administration to offer its software at an annual license of $3 per computer for the first year of new contract. The software can help agencies meet the requirements of the Federal Desktop Core Configuration rules as well as emerging compliance regulations regarding power consumption.
Written by Heather Clancy, Contributor

For those of you readers who work within federal government agencies and have been faced with meeting mandated conservation policies, software vendor BigFix has negotiated a deal with the General Services Administration to offer its software at an annual license of $3 per computer for the first year of new contract. The software can help agencies meet the requirements of the Federal Desktop Core Configuration rules as well as emerging compliance regulations regarding power consumption.

BigFix, which got its start in life as a patch management software company, sells something called BigFix Power Management, which lets you set policies over literally hundreds of individual workstations that can be managed centrally. The company is typically used to shut off power at night, which translates into about 108 hours per week for a typical organization. The software includes a wake-on LAN feature, which means you can also turn it on when you want to for maintenance or patches. "Where we shine is in our ability to manage massive amounts of computers that are massively distributed," says David Appelbaum, vice president of marketing for BigFix.

The deal is being offered through the GSA SmartBuy program and it expires at the end of the government fiscal year on Sept. 30. BigFix also is running a back-to-school promotion to encourage schools to embrace its power management and discovery software. That promo, too, ends at the end of September.

By the way, did you know that the U.S. Air Force is the government's leading user of green power, with more than 899 million kilowatt hours-per-year? The U.S. Environmental Protection is No. 2, with about 299.3 million kilowatt hours-per-year, which represents 100 percent of its power consumption. Here's the full ranking of the EPA's Green Power Partners for federal governments. And here's the local government list, which is topped by the city of Houston.

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