[EN] User Guide - MITM - Energy Saver for PC

[EN] User Guide - MITM - Energy Saver for PC


 

Energy Saver for PC is a key application of the My IT Manager (MITM) commercial offering, offered by AVOB. This application aims to optimize the energy consumption of your IT fleet by monitoring the activity of your laptops and desktops, and by applying energy policies. The application is available on our SaaS platform AVOB OS. 

Energy Saver for PC can be launched with the icon above in the main menu of the platform. The administrator can assign to each endpoint one of two modes: Viewer mode enables only the monitoring, and Saver mode also enables energy optimization managed with energy policies. Energy Saver for PC is completed by the Dashboard application which enables the visualization and analysis of indicators, such as the consumption of an endpoint or a group of endpoints, and the savings generated by using Saver mode.

The application is available to all users, although features that involve editing and modification can be restricted using permission sets in the Energy Saver for PC - Settings application.

Energy Saver for PC Structure


 

The application is separated into two main tabs:
  1. Administration (opened by default)
  2. Energy Policy

The Administration tab

This tab shows all the endpoints managed by the logged in user, organized by their Active Directory OUs or by a custom hierarchy, and their management data.

Administration tab structure

The administration tab is separated into three panes:
  1. The top left pane is the hierarchy of Entities and groups, either recreated from Active Directory OUs (blue folders) or created manually (yellow folders). You can use this pane to set the scope displayed in the other panes. 

By default, the scope selects only the endpoints which are immediately in the selected entity or group. To extend the scope to all endpoints in all sub-entities and subgroups of the selected entity or group, right-click it and select View all elements.
  1. The right pane displays a table of all endpoints in the current scope and some of their characteristics, such as:
  1. computer name
  2. IP address
  3. Active Directory path
  4. custom path
  5. computer type (laptop or desktop)
  6. assigned energy policy 
  7. time of last connection
  8. Energy Saver state (viewer or saver mode)
  9. Energy Saver agent version
  10. assigned cost policy
  11. operating system
  12. time of next scheduled wakeup
  13. time of last boot
  14. CPU name



The administrator can select which columns are displayed and filter the elements displayed with the search box. Use this pane to select the elements to analyse.
  1. The bottom left pane displays charts for computers selected in the main pane:
  1. Number of agents over time
  2. Agent versions
  3. Events
  4. Energy Saver status
  5. Energy policies assigned
  6. Wake-up status


The Energy Policy tab

This tab is where the energy policies can be managed, in order to assign schedules and various energy settings to endpoints. 

Energy Policy tab structure

The main elements of this tab are the following:
  1. The toolbar with buttons to create, copy, delete, save and rename the selected policy, and a menu to select the current policy.


  1. The collapsible panes, that each contain some of the policy's settings:
  1. General policy settings
  2. Policy description
  3. Calendar
  4. Weekly schedule
  5. Daily schedule
  6. Energy modes
  7. My blocking processes

 


 


Definition and characteristics of energy policies

An energy policy defines the settings applied on an endpoint in order to optimize its energy consumption. Typical settings include automatic standby, wakeup, shutdowns and reboots.

General Settings Pane

The following settings are available:
  1. Share policy: Shared policies are available to the administrators of sub-entities for assignment to endpoint, but can only be modified by an administrator in the same entity or a higher entity than the policy owner.
  2. Connection frequency (min): Minimum time beween two connections of the agent to the agent handler.
  3. Random connection delay (%): Spreads agent connections over time to avoid too many simultaneous connections.
  4. Scheduled wake-up time interval (min): Schedules wake-up actions randomly over the specified period of time to avoid power spikes. Example: If there is a wake-up scheduled in the 7:30-8:00 time slot and the setting "5-15", the wake-up will occur randomly between 7:35 and 7:45.
  5. Wake from HID mouse/keyboard: Allow or Disable the power settings from HID devices, or Ignore to leave original settings intact.
  6. Enable Wake-On-Lan in network card settings: Allow or Disable the WoL settings from network adapters, or Ignore to leave original settings intact.
  7. Enable hibernate: Enables hibernate (ACPI S4) in Windows. This requires free space on the boot partition equal to amount of RAM.
  8. Enable hybrid sleep: Replaces sleep (ACPI S3) with hybrid sleep. Requires hibernate.
  9. Display Widget: Displays the AVOB widget in the system tray.
  10. Widget max postponing time (hours): The maximum time during which a user is authorized to block sleep using the AVOB Widget.
  11. Widget custom message: Custom message to be displayed on the AVOB Widget.
  12. Savings displayed by the Widget: Whether the Widget displays the savings from the whole entity or only from their computer.
  13. Advanced management of remote Office documents: Just before the computer goes to sleep, save and close any open Office file (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) that resides on a Windows or webdav (Sharepoint) share, and reopen them on resume. 
The Advanced management of remote Office documents feature can be seen as invasive by end user because it forces saving the documents. Only use it if you encounter issues with Office when resuming form standby, such as files stuck in read-only mode.
  1. Office documents timeout (s): How long the agent attempts to reopen closed Office documents if they are unavailable.

Policy Description Pane

This pane provides a text field to write any notes pertaining to the policy. It also displays general information about the policy, such as it owner, the last user to make a modification and the corresponding date, and how many endpoints and groups are assigned to this policy.

Calendar pane

The settings on this pane define which schedule is used by default, as well as exceptions when other schedules should be used.

Weekly schedule pane

A weekly schedule divides the week into 30-minutes time slots, and each time slot is set to an energy mode. Use the toolbar at the top of the pane to manage the different weekly schedules within the policy, and the action button at the top-left to create a new schedule, or duplicate, remove or rename the current schedule.



To modify a schedule, select one or many time slots using Ctrl-click or Shift-click, then right-click to select the mode to apply. You can also double-click a time slot to see a summary of the selected mode.

Daily schedule pane

This pane works the same way as the previous pane, but displays a single day instead of a week.

Energy modes pane

There are 8 modes per policy, shared by all the policy's schedules. You can use the Action menu to rename the currently selected mode, if the default names are not suitable. Each mode has the following settings available:

  1. Standby type: Which type of standby to use depending on the power source. Simple standby (ACPI S3) or hibernate (S4).
In Sleep (simple standby), the PC consumes a very low amount of power and resumes very quickly, because the RAM is still powered. When using hibernate, the content of the RAM is stored on disk, then the PC goes into a power mode similar to a shutdown, where it consumes practically no power. Going to and resuming from hibernate takes a bit more time, especially if the system drive isn't an SSD. However, this mode is more resilient than Sleep, because the session isn't lost even if there is a power cut. If hybrid sleep is enabled in General Settings, then it replaces Sleep. Hybrid sleep is a combination of both Sleep and Hibernate: it saves the memory on disk just like hibernate, but keeps the memory powered like Sleep. This way, the computer resumes just as fast as with Sleep and it is resilient to power outages.
  1. Computer standby: Defines the time of user inactivity (keyboard/mouse activity) before entering standby, depending on the power source. 0 minutes means Never.
  2. Force standby: Check this to ignore processes that try to prevent the computer from entering standby, such as full screen videos or presentations. Check "Include my processes" to also ignore the custom blocking processes defined in the policy.
  3. Screen standby: Defines the time of user inactivity (keyboard/mouse activity) before making monitors enter standby mode, depending on the power source. 0 minutes means Never.
  4. Turn off hard drives: Defines the time of hard drive I/O inactivity before turning off hard drives. 0 minutes means Never.
  5. System actions: Automatically shutdown or reboot the computer at the start of the time slot. You can use Advanced settings to allow users to postpone or cancel this action, and to force or not the action if a program is preventing it.
  6. System wake-up: Wakes up the computer at the beginning of the time slot using a waketimer. Waketimers can only wake the computer from standby (sleep, hibernate or hybrid), not from a full shutdown, and only when it is plugged on A/C.
  7. Efficient Power: Optimum enhances the default CPU frequency modulation. Off leaves the default settings, and Extreme forces the lowest available frequency. 

My blocking processes pane

You can define custom processes that prevent the computer from going to standby. Use the Add button to add a process name, and enter its name and a CPU usage threshold. Whenever the process CPU usage is above the specified threshold, it counts as activity and resets the inactivity timer. If the threshold is 0%, then the process will be considered blocking whenvever it is running, regardless of its CPU usage.

Administration tab features

Select columns




Click the "Columns choice" button at the top right of the right pane, to choose which characteristics of the endpoints to display.



Download displayed information

Click the "Export view in CSV" button at the top right of the right pane, to download the list of endpoints currently displayed in the right pane. You can choose to export all columns, or only the ones currently displayed.



You can use the search bar to filter the list of endpoints currently displayed in the right panel. Make sure to use the Cancel search button  between two searches.
A simple search looks for the text from the search bar in all columns.
An advanced search lets you select more precise filters to apply to each column. 


You can save advanced search parameters in the Search menu.

Applying actions



Use the action button at the top left of the main panel to select one of the following actions to apply on the selected endpoints:
  1. assign an energy policy
  2. switch to Viewer or Saver mode
  3. update the Energy Saver agent to a newer version
  4. run an instant action (wake-up, reboot, shutdown, standby, power limit)
Power policies and cost policies can also be assigned to groups. To do so, select a group, then use the Action button at the top left of the left panel, and select the type of policy to assign. Then, choose the policy in the menu and click Apply. Cost policies are defined in the Energy Cost application, in the main menu.

Switching endpoints to Saver mode

This step is essential for an energy policy to be enforced on computers. Even if a policy is assigned, the energy settings are only taken into account if the agent on the computer is in Saver mode.

  1. Select the target computers in the right panel.
  2. Select the power policy in the menu and click Apply.
  3. Click the Action button at the top left of the panel, and choose Energy Saver state.
  4. Choose "Saver" in the menu, then click Apply.

Organizational Structures

Energy Saver for PC sorts endpoints into two distinct hierarchies:
  1. AD groups: Represented by blue folders. Every endpoint reports its position in the domain, and a partial hierarchy of the Active Directory (or other LDAP-based domain) is reconstructed. Because this organization is defined in an external tool, it cannot be modified from the Energy Saver Console.
  2. Custom groupes: Represented by brown folders. This hierarchy can be created by the administrator by using a right-click on an entity or a preexisting custom group, and selecting New Custom Group. The computers can be sorted into custom groups via drag and drop, or with a standardization rule in the Energy Saver for PC - Settings application.
You can click on the blue and brown folders in the toolbar in order to choose which hierarchy is visible.
Note: a computer can be in only one custom group at a time. 








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