Makes Sense To Go The Synapsense Way

Thursday, 29 July 2010 08:08

Written by Rakesh Dogra

SynapSense Corporation was founded in 2006 in Folsom, California. It offers wireless instrumentation and energy-efficiency solutions. This smart-grid developer focuses heavily on the environment, and its solutions promise decreased carbon emissions and higher power efficiency. It assures data center operators up to 20% energy savings. SynapSense belongs to a small cadre of companies that design energy-management systems.

The company’s systems place sensors on the racks and the floors below data centers. The sensors measure parameters like temperature, humidity, and pressure to determine areas of ineffective cooling and to help correct these deficiencies. The AdaptiveControl application, which collects data from these sensors, constantly aligns IT load and cooling capacity. For instance, this application can control the speed of a fan on a server rack to decrease power usage and at the same time ensure that an acceptable temperature is maintained. This process results in optimum cooling capacity and, therefore, huge savings. The system also delivers scalability, reliability, and responsiveness, all through an easy-to-use deployment. The reliability comes from a granular deployment of sensors that guarantees accuracy. The system can deliver responsiveness owing to its ability to dynamically control CRAH set points and fan speeds.

Recently, the company has received an infusion of funds from a group of international investors like DFJ Frontier and Sequoia Capital, as well as GE (more specifically, GE Energy Financial Services). GE is well known for its green attitude. Its focus on “ecomagination” is well known throughout the world. GE Energy Financial Services is spearheading change and growth in ecomagination, which is basically the company’s dedication to develop and construct solutions aimed at environmental conservation.

The latest round of funding was to the tune of $5 million, making a total of $25 million for SynapSense. Interestingly, a consortium of capital-venture firms like GE and others had announced very recently that they would be investing a sum of about $200 million in firms that can propel research and development of smart-grid technologies. 

The investment in SynapSense is aimed at deeper research and development of cooling solutions for data centers. Of late, SynapSense has embarked on a strategy of intensifying its focus on digital energy services. This focus, combined with a successful history in climate management for data centers, has enabled the inflow of funds. Pete Van Deventer, CEO of SynapSense, avers, the company is “tremendously capital efficient for a green technology company.”

With this latest move, SynapSense can now offer GE’s Intelligent Platform Proficy Software and Control Platform along with its own products. This united approach promises data center managers savings of up to 35% on cooling costs and also provides assurance of redundancy, availability, and security.

The company also gets to tap into the clients of GE and its other investor—Robert Bosch Venture Capital. For GE, too, it’s a win-win situation. GE is already a client of SynapSense, and it also sells components for air conditioners. By approaching a client with a combined offering, the company can showcase a holistic overview of energy management and, most importantly, the savings that can be gained using streamlined systems.

This digital energy offering will aid in the technological and commercial development of SynapSense systems for data center monitoring, energy-management technology, and adaptive control.

As Van Deventer states, the investment and commercial collaboration with GE has deepened their relationship and has also helped the company to extend its digital energy services. In turn, GE Energy Financial Service’s head of venture capital, Kevin Skillern, said that SynapSense was a “strong addition” to GE’s digital energy.

SynapSense also has big names as clients, including Yahoo, Facebook, and NBC.

This kind of a product and investment makes sense because, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, data centers constitute the single largest power guzzler. Steve Doublett, leader of data center strategy at GE Corporate Global Infrastructure Services, says that SynapSense will give their Proficy solution added capabilities to further enhance performance and cut costs, because now it will have environmental metrics to bolster and sharpen focus on performance.

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