Cisco to Acquire IT Energy Management Company JouleX for $107M

In a move to bolster Cisco (News - Alert) Services’ Smart Offerings, the networking giant said it will acquire JouleX, an enterprise IT energy management for network-attached and data center assets, for approximately $107 million. The acquisition is set to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013.

The Atlanta-based company will expand Cisco’s existing services by using the capabilities of the network to gain visibility into and control energy usage across global IT environments and extends the company’s so-called Internet of Things capabilities, according to Faiyaz Shahpurwala, senior vice president of industry solutions at Cisco.

“JouleX’s technology will strengthen Cisco Services’ Smart Offerings and complements our evolving services strategy. It extends our ‘Internet of Things’ capabilities and is a good alignment to Cisco EnergyWise,” Shahpurwala said in a statement. “With network-enabled devices increasing exponentially, our partners and customers are asking for this solution today to operationalize their energy management capabilities in the network and reduce cost. JouleX’s cloud-enabled, agent-less architecture will allow our partners and customers to [do so] quickly.”

As more global companies are faced with new energy-related challenges, more enterprises are focusing on network and IT energy efficiency by seeking new technologies that control energy consumption across their data centers. That’s where JouleX comes in. The company provides software for networked devices for enterprise and data center energy management, analytics, policy governance and compliance. Company officials said JouleX’s energy management solution combined with Cisco EnergyWise will provide customers with a simple way to measure, monitor and manage energy usage for network and IT systems across the enterprise – minus device-side agents, hardware meters or network configurations.

Upon completion of the acquisition, JouleX employees will be integrated into the Connected Energy Solutions team within Cisco’s Industry Solutions Group, reporting to David Goddard, vice president and general manager.

Two years ago, Gartner (News - Alert) named JouleX one of the “Cool Vendors in Green IT and Sustainability” and was recently one of only two companies making up the researcher’s “Where Are They Now” analysis. The company’s software is designed to help reduce energy costs by monitoring, analyzing and managing energy usage of all network-connected devices and systems through a set of policies derived through analytics.

JouleX was founded in Munich and currently has research and development operations in Kassel, Germany.

Earlier this year, the company announced a new version of its enterprise-class energy management solution, designed to reduce the total cost of ownership of network and data infrastructure.

The JouleX Energy Manager (JEM) platform version 4.0 is geared toward managed service providers (MSP) and enterprises, and is designed for data centers, distributed office environments and facilities.