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MiserWare Introduces Datacenter Power Management with Granola Datacenter

October 31st, 2011

MiserWare Introduces Datacenter Power Management with Granola Datacenter

Blacksburg, VA – September 12, 2011 – MiserWare, a leading developer in software power management, today at the Data Center World conference in Orlando announced the availability of Granola Datacenter, a product that can reduce the power consumption of servers by up to 35% while maintaining the performance and full availability of these critical machines.

Granola Datacenter is similar in installation and operation to MiserWare’s popular PC product, Granola Enterprise, but gives administrators the additional ability to explicitly specify a performance guarantee. These settings may then be scheduled for different hours of the day and days of the week, allowing administrators to tailor the power management of their servers to their specific needs.

The software was initially designed for use in the financial services industry where performance is critical during day trading. During pilots with Merrill Lynch and others, performance guarantees held while saving as much as 35% total system energy for a typical server. But demand from both government and the private sector drove the design of a system for use in any data center on any server running Windows or Linux or VMWare. Granola Datacenter is the first commercial release of MiserWare software specifically targeting general purpose servers in the datacenter.

This announcement comes on the back of a statement from In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm representing the CIA among others, in July announcing a strategic partnership with MiserWare to expand the feature set of the Granola software suite to meet the power demands of the National Geospatial Agency (NGA). “MiserWare’s Granola Datacenter software is designed to save energy without loss of availability in mission critical government systems,” said William Strecker, Executive Vice President of Architecture & Engineering and CTO at IQT. The NGA expects to deploy the software in several of its datacenters throughout the U.S.

About MiserWare

MiserWare makes software that reduces energy waste in computers. Their patent-pending technologies ensure energy reductions without loss of performance or availability. Granola software power management is MiserWare’s flagship product and is available for free for personal use. Granola has been listed on TIME Magazine’s Top 20 Green Tech Ideas and PC Magazines Best Free Utility Software. Granola is also available for business use in versions for the enterprise and data centers. Follow MiserWare on Twitter and Facebook.

Contact:
Kirk W. Cameron
press@miserware.com
http://grano.la
http://www.miserware.com
(540) 552-2914

Tags: Granola Datacenter, Granola products, press release, server power management
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Announcing Granola v4, now with scheduling!

July 27th, 2011

Today, we are pleased to announce the release of Granola v4.0! Among other things, the new version offers you higher energy savings and more tailored power management by enabling the creation and scheduling of custom power management policies through the Granola Dash.

This feature enables you to specify different desired levels of power management for different hours of the day and days of the week which can then be assigned to custom groups of systems under management. A common scenario would be to assign a more aggressive power policy during the nighttime hours and weekends, resulting in greater energy savings during the less-utilized hours.

Here is a walkthrough of the new features, as performed by our very own Hollis Ervin:

Additionally, we have created Granola Connect packages for all supported versions of Linux, making it possible to connect your machines to the Granola Dash, even if you’re running a boring old version of Linux. I’m looking at you, RHEL 4. Other features include support for Fedora 15, and numerous bug-fixes and small enhancements.

Please note that if you are running an old version of Granola and you are using your account to track your savings, you will need to upgrade to the newest version to be compatible with the Granola Dash. Please upgrade as soon as possible! Of course, if you’re not already tracking your savings online, sign up for an account now to receive 5 free licenses of Granola Enterprise, and an unlimited-machine 30-day trial. And tell your parents, siblings, friends, enemies, bosses, IT workers, and everyone else you know!

Changelog:

Added named policy support to the configuration parsing for Granola.
Re-implemented Granola Stats for Linux as Granola Connect.
Added support for downloading policy schedules to Granola Connect.
Added a policy and schedule editor to the Granola Dash.
Improved configuration management.
Re-implemented some internal Granola and Granola connect functionality in Python.
Removed power settings from Granola GUI now that the scheduler can set them.
Fixed a couple of client scalability issues.
Removed api interaction from Granola GUI now Granola Connect can do it.
Migrated the remaining MiserWare web infrastructure into the cloud.
Added a new ‘aggressive’ power mode to Granola which will attempt to save even more power.
Added support for Fedora 15 and deprecated Fedora 13.

Tags: Granola, Granola Enterprise, policies, scheduling, v4.0
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MiserWare Signs Deal with IQT to Provide Software Power Management to NGA

July 19th, 2011

MiserWare Signs Deal with IQT to Provide Software Power Management to NGA

Blacksburg, VA – July 19, 2011 – MiserWare, a leading developer in software power management, today announced a strategic partnership agreement with In-Q-Tel (IQT), the independent strategic investment firm that identifies and delivers innovative technology solutions to support the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community, to introduce MiserWare’s Granola Enterprise and Datacenter software to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

“NGA is excited to be the first intelligence agency to use MiserWare’s revolutionary technology to reduce power costs and its carbon footprint,” said David. K. White, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency liaison with In-Q-Tel. “We look forward to deploying this capability at our new headquarters in Springfield, Va., and across our two major facilities in the St. Louis, Mo., area as well as our support teams worldwide, in the near future.”

MiserWare’s Granola Enterprise software enables users to reduce their environmental footprint and track energy savings over thousands of computer systems. The smart software automatically slows down the processor when the workload is low and brings it back up to maximum speed when needed. Granola can save as much as 35 percent of total system energy without ever impacting the computers’ working performance. As part of this strategic partnership, MiserWare will work closely with IQT and its customers to expand the features of the Granola Datacenter software.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community is more focused than ever before on reducing energy waste,” said William Strecker, Executive Vice President of Architecture & Engineering and CTO at IQT. “MiserWare’s Granola Datacenter software is designed to save energy without loss of availability in mission critical government systems.”

“Our partnership with IQT will provide access to government customers focused on energy management in the data center,” said MiserWare CEO Kirk W. Cameron. “The potential energy waste reductions resulting from this partnership will support the dynamic computing needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community.”

About MiserWare

About IQT

In-Q-Tel is the not-for-profit, strategic investment firm that works to identify, adapt, and deliver innovative technology solutions to support the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Launched in 1999 as a private, independent organization, IQT’s mission is to identify and partner with companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve the national security interests of the United States. For more information, visit www.iqt.org.

About the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is the nation’s premier source of geospatial intelligence. As a Department of Defense combat support agency and a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, NGA provides imagery, geospatial and targeting analysis, along with image sciences and modeling for U.S. national defense, disaster relief and safety of navigation. NGA seeks to know the Earth, show the way, and understand the world. For more information, visit www.nga.mil.

Contact:

Kirk W. Cameron

press@miserware.com

http://grano.la

http://www.miserware.com

(540) 552-2914

Tags: In-Q-Tel, NGA, press release
Posted in MiserWare | No Comments »

Introducing Granola Enterprise 30 day no risk free trial

May 18th, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Introducing Granola Enterprise 30 day no risk free trial

Blacksburg, VA – May 18, 2011 – MiserWare, creators of the popular free Granola power management software, announced they will be offering a free, unlimited 30-day trial of their Granola Enterprise version in response to user requests. The 30-day trial provides users with the full power of automated power management and energy savings tracking on an unlimited number of systems within the trial period with no obligation to purchase. Users need only to create an account at http://grano.la to begin the trial.

“We want our customers to experience all that Granola has to offer” says CEO Kirk W. Cameron. “Since users can download and install the software themselves in minutes, they could save thousands during just the trial period.”

To begin the free trial or learn more, visit http://grano.la. There’s no need to contact MiserWare, just head to the website to create an account. Your trial is just one click away!

Granola Enterprise is available immediately for purchase. For more information on pricing, please contact sales@miserware.com.

About MiserWare

MiserWare makes software that reduces energy waste in computers. Their patent-pending technologies ensure energy reductions without loss of performance or availability. Granola software power management is MiserWare’s flagship product and is available for free for personal use. Granola has been listed on TIME Magazine’s Top 20 Ways to Go Green and PC Magazines Best Free Software. Granola is also available for business use in versions for the enterprise and data centers. Follow MiserWare on Twitter (http://twitter.com/miserware) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/miserware).

Contact:
Kirk W. Cameron
press@miserware.com
http://grano.la
http://www.miserware.com
(540) 552-2914

Posted in MiserWare | No Comments »

Announcing Granola v3.3 and the new Granola Dash

April 22nd, 2011

We are excited to announce the release of Granola v3.3 and the new Granola Dash as part of our Earth Day 2011 celebration! The new version offers several new features. Most significantly, version 3.3 communicates with the brand new Granola Dash, the interactive portal for your Granola savings information. Here is a quick walkthrough of some of the features of the new dash:

The new version of Granola also offers several other features, including persistent savings for users with accounts, support for the Euro currency, and improved XP application performance in some environments. Please see the changelog at the end of this post for a full list of features.

Please note that if you are running an old version of Granola and you are using your account to track your savings, you will need to upgrade to the newest version to have your savings upload to the new dash. Please upgrade as soon as possible! Of course, if you’re not already tracking your savings online, sign up for an account now to receive 5 free licenses of Granola Enterprise.

We’ve also revamped the website, adding a lot of new content and the new community page. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Changelog:

New Granola Dash for tracking savings, organizing machines into groups, and more.
Application support for the new Granola Dash REST API in both Linux and Windows.
Persistent savings that will update the local savings from the website values and visa versa.
Added support for Ubuntu 11.04, Fedora 13 and 14, Debian 6.
New UUID style that precludes migration in new installs of v3.3 and above.
Support for the Euro currency in the Windows application.
New Granola website design and content.
New community content page.
Fixed a bug that was failing trying to register session notifications before the Terminal Services service was started.
Fixed a bug that could cause failure to restart on reboot in Windows XP.

Tags: 3.3, Granola, Granola Dash, release
Posted in Granola, MiserWare | 1 Comment »

Granola 3.2 is now available!

March 16th, 2011

There is a new version of Granola available! With version 3.2, Granola now offers significantly enhanced power savings for Windows XP systems, as well as an improved user experience overall. It also addresses some problems some users were having with their monitors and system sleep, so be sure to upgrade as soon as possible.

For users with accounts, the new version offers improved and more robust communication with your account, making it easier and more reliable for you to track your savings online. For Windows XP users, improvements in our algorithms and some minor bugfixes should improve your at-the-wall power savings. For all Windows users, the upgrade path is now much simpler and clearer, making it easier keep Granola upgraded to the latest version.

As always, if you have any issues with the new version, please let us know at Support @ MiserWare . If you haven’t downloaded Granola yet, download it now.

Changelog:

Improved upgrade UI
Improved account communication
More robust savings storage
Fixed screensaver/monitor sleep issues in some XP environments
Fixed system sleep issues in some XP environments
Fixed potential permissions issue for XP

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New Granola Release Enhances Windows XP Experience

March 15th, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Granola Release Enhances Windows XP Experience

Blacksburg, VA — (March, 2010) – MiserWare, a leading provider of free software power management solutions, launched the latest version of its popular Granola free power management software. Granola 3.2.1 provides additional features for Windows XP systems that improve power savings functionality. The user experience is also improved for users of the freeware version. For example, based upon user feedback, we made upgrading the Windows version is easier and less intrusive in the new version.
The Granola software continues to be free for personal use. Creating an account provides users with 5 free licenses of the Granola Enterprise product which enables tracking and managing your energy savings from a web browser.

MiserWare makes software that reduces energy waste in computers. Their patent-pending technologies ensure energy reductions without loss of performance or availability. Granola software power management is MiserWare’s flagship product and is available for free for personal use. Granola has been listed on TIME Magazine’s Top 20 Ways to Go Green and PC Magazines Best Free Software. Granola is also available for business use in versions for the enterprise and data centers. Follow MiserWare on Twitter and Facebook.

Contact:
Kirk W. Cameron
press@miserware.com
http://grano.la
http://www.miserware.com
(540) 552-2914

Tags: Granola, MiserWare, Windows XP
Posted in MiserWare | No Comments »

Japanese in Crisis Turn to Granola Software to Conserve Laptop Power

March 15th, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Japanese in Crisis Turn to Granola Software to Conserve Laptop Power

Blacksburg, VA – March 15, 2011 – The crisis in Japan is unprecedented. Earthquakes, tsunamis, radiation, more earthquakes… It continues. Staying connected can mean staying in touch with loved ones across a battered country or knowing whether a danger has passed. Laptops become lifelines.

Yet, laptop battery life is notoriously short. Enter Granola. The free Granola software (http://grano.la) improves the power management of a laptop to ensure people maximize their battery life while connected. The free software was designed for businesses to reduce energy waste in servers and desktop computers, but has found a niche among road warriors dissatisfied with their laptop battery life and to date has been downloaded more than 200,000 times.

CEO Kirk W. Cameron noticed Granola traffic from Japan increase 200-fold beginning March 12th, the day after a 9.0-scale earthquake rocked Japan. “We noticed downloads from Japan went from a few dozen to thousands at a time when we were surprised they even had connectivity.”

But the downloads continued, pouring in from nearly every city in Japan as people turned to the software to save up to 35% of their battery life as crisis after crisis unfolded. Website traffic is up significantly as an additional 20,000 or more have downloaded in the last month. “We were surprised and pleased that our software was able to help people in need half way across the world,” says Joseph Turner who co-founded MiserWare, creators of Granola, in 2007 with Cameron.

The makers of Granola have no intention of charging for the software anytime soon. “We created the free version so everyone, everywhere could use the software to help the environment.” This is good news for those that want to stay connected during the current tornado season or as hurricane season approaches.

MiserWare makes software that reduces energy waste in computers. Their patent-pending technologies ensure energy reductions without loss of performance or availability. Granola software power management is MiserWare’s flagship product and is available for free for personal use. Granola has been listed on TIME Magazine’s Top 20 Ways to Go Green and PC Magazines Best Free Software. Granola is also available for business use in versions for the enterprise and data centers. Follow MiserWare on Twitter (http://twitter.com/miserware) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/miserware).

Contact:

Kirk W. Cameron
press@miserware.com
http://grano.la
http://www.miserware.com
(540) 552-2914

Posted in MiserWare | No Comments »

Granola featured in Amex OpenForum

February 24th, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Granola featured in Amex OpenForum

Blacksburg, VA – February 24, 2011 – Ever wondered why Granola is offered for free? Christina Hernandez from American Express OPEN Forum wondered the same thing. After TIME Magazine named Granola a top 20 green tech idea, she was intrigued to learn more about the product, and the man behind the scenes. She sat down with CEO Kirk W. Cameron to get some answers in her article Why One Entrepreneur Gave Away His ‘Granola’ Software for Free (http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/innovation/article/why-one-entrepreneur-gave-away-his-granola-software-for-free-christina-hernandez).

The decision to offer Granola software for free didn’t come easy for Cameron and co-founder Joseph Turner. “We had a lot of discussions when we first started the company three years ago about whether we should be open source or be free with ads,” explained Cameron.

Before Granola was launched, they first created MicroMiser and sent it out to about a dozen people they knew. With the positive feedback those dozen offered, before they knew it MicroMiser had a user base of about 3,000. The team decided to survey the users to see why they were using the software. “They wanted to be energy conscious in their everyday lives. We realized then that this might be an opportunity to launch a product in the consumer space,” said Cameron. They then re-branded MicroMiser as Granola and received 100,000 downloads in the first 100 days after its initial launch on Earth Day 2010.

Granola is still offered for free and there are no plans for changing this. “Granola users started contacting us looking for an Enterprise version,” comments Cameron when discussing how Granola has actually started generating revenue. With account creation, users get 5 licenses of Granola Enterprise for free(http://grano.la//support/docs/granola_enterprise_brochure.pdf).

MiserWare makes software that reduces energy waste in computers. Their patent-pending technologies ensure energy reductions without loss of performance or availability. Granola software power management is MiserWare’s flagship product and is available for free for personal use. Granola has been listed on TIME Magazine’s Top 20 Ways to Go Green and PC Magazines Best Free Software. Granola is also available for business use in versions for the enterprise and data centers. Follow MiserWare on Twitter (http://twitter.com/miserware) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/miserware).

Contact:

Kirk W. Cameron

press@miserware.com

http://grano.la

http://www.miserware.com

(540) 552-2914

Posted in MiserWare | No Comments »

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MiserWare Introduces Datacenter Power Management with Granola Datacenter

Announcing Granola v4, now with scheduling!

MiserWare Signs Deal with IQT to Provide Software Power Management to NGA

Introducing Granola Enterprise 30 day no risk free trial

Announcing Granola v3.3 and the new Granola Dash

Granola 3.2 is now available!

New Granola Release Enhances Windows XP Experience

Japanese in Crisis Turn to Granola Software to Conserve Laptop Power

Granola featured in Amex OpenForum