White paper FUJITSU Always Available Office PCs
White paper
FUJITSU Always Available Office PCs
Fujitsu’s newly created LPAM feature rounds out the company’s already impressive set of ‘green’ technologies
that allows for substantial energy savings and cost cuts and virtually opens the door to a multitude of new
usage scenarios, with a special focus on Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C).
Table of Contents
Introduction
LPAM or How to Keep your PC Permanently Available
Fujitsu Products Supporting Low Power Active Mode
Conclusion
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White paper FUJITSU Always Available Office PCs
Introduction
In today’s hyper-connected economy, virtually no one ever goes offline anymore. Companies can’t afford it because their customers, employees
and shareholders want to be able to access information and computer resources anytime. Likewise, employees need to be able to stay in touch
with their customers, teams and superiors at any given moment during the workday. As a consequence enterprises and their workforce strive to
be permanently available, at least during office hours (except for occasional coffee breaks) or if necessary 24/7, all year round. So their
communication channels are almost always open – and 99 per cent of the time it helps to improve ‘stakeholder satisfaction’.
Many companies, however, find it hard to adapt to this new culture of accessibility for technical reasons. Their IT infrastructures simply aren’t up
to the task, with their regular desktop PCs that lack a number of core capabilities that would make a strategic switch not only desirable, but also
commercially viable. As it is easy to imagine, the main obstacle here is power consumption – to support permanent availability, a computer
must constantly draw a certain amount of electricity from the circuit. And despite recent advancements in building energy-efficient PCs, it is still
considered an expensive activity: an average system bought in 2012 will eat up 576 kWh over a three year period, even though it spends nearly
two thirds of that time in standby or idle mode.¹ This translates into mean costs of €121 ($162) for a ‘pure’ PC that doesn’t even have a monitor,
keyboard and mouse plugged in. For a company with more than hundreds or thousands of employees – who all need their own device – this will
quickly become a major cost factor. So the challenge was to create a technology that would help systems to stay constantly connected while at
the same time to improve their energy efficiency even further.
Low Power Active Mode or How to Keep your PC Permanently Available
An ICT vendor like Fujitsu, with its traditional strong focus on Green IT, will only see this as a welcome challenge. Our developers went to work
and used the power-saving features of 6th Generation Intel¬ Core™ vPro™ processors and Intel¬ chipsets to build a new function called Low
Power Active Mode (LPAM). As the name indicates, LPAM is a new power-saving mode that helps to bridge the gap between a computer’s
operating state and conventional standby (“Save to RAM”, ACPI S3), in which it usually draws 1 watt from the grid. LPAM on the other hand adds
an “active standby” mode in which a device will draw 4 to 5 watts. Initially, this doesn’t seem to make much sense – after all, where do the
savings come from if LPAM actually requires more power than the regular standby mode?
The answer is in what it enables users to do. With LPAM turned on, a desktop will start to behave almost like a smartphone: It looks like it is
turned off, but still draws enough power to perform critical background tasks. As a result, network connections remain active whenever
necessary so that email programs can connect to the server at any given time and keep a user’s inbox up-to-date. Likewise, the PC immediately
switches to ON state as soon as a call or request for video conferencing comes in; if the user isn’t available, it automatically logs the request and
arranges to call back at a later date. It’s even possible to run virus scans, and administrators can perform system maintenance as they see
appropriate thanks to having constant in-band access. On the other hand, typical ‘power-hogs’, such as browsers, are suspended, without the
chance to jump into life by accident. Hence, if a system is properly configured, the basic processes we just described need less than 5 watts to
run, roughly 25 percent less than in standard idle mode. But LPAM is more than just another clever feature that helps companies cut their power
bills; ultimately, it paves the way for a huge amount of new application scenarios, mainly from the area of Unified Communications and
Collaboration (UC&C) and PC remote management. ² And best of all, these benefits are fairly easy to reap – all the user or system administrator
needs to do is to access a PC’s workplace power and communication settings, choose the appropriate device profile (“always available”), pick the
working days and hours during which the system remains active, and select the applications to be suspended when the monitor is off. Add one
more click to confirm the changes (see Figure 1 below), and it’s all done. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
1
Cf. Fichter/Clausen/Hintermann (Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability): „Resource-efficient workplace computer solutions
2020“(PDF). Editors: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Federal
Environment Agency (UBA) and BITKOM. Berlin 2012. Web. 19 August 2014. Available at:
http://www.bitkom.org/files/documents/Roadmap_Arbeitsplatzloesungen_Web.pdf (German edition);
http://www.borderstep.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Roadmap_Resource-efficient_workplace_computer_solutions_2020.pdf (order form)
² To learn more about UC&C, please read the related white paper
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White paper FUJITSU Always Available Office PCs
Fig. 1: Configuring LPAM in Workplace Power and Communication Settings
FUJITSU Products Supporting Low Power Active Mode
At the moment, the ESPRIMO Q556 desktop in the All-round segment, ESPRIMO D/P756 desktops in the Advanced segment and the
ESPRIMO Q956, D/P956, X956 desktops in the Superior segment support LPAM.
Details of the innovative ESPRIMO X956 and X956/T and the ESPRIMO Q556 and Q956 desktops supporting LPAM:

The ESMPRIMO X956 and X956/T are All-in-One PCs that combine the latest Intel¬ Core™ processors and Intel¬ chipsets with the latest
Microsoft Windows operating system. Building on these technologies, we developed a set of innovative features to go along with
LPAM. For instance, a presence sensor recognizes whether a PC user is in his workplace or not and automatically turns the
screen/system on or off accordingly, while a face recognition module allows for an easy and secure login. Together with an adjustable
HD webcam, a high-quality microphone and an integrated presence/call indicator, these features make up the enhanced multi-media
module that turns to ESPRIMO X956 and X956/T into perfect hardware platforms for future UC&C scenarios. Further strengths include
extra-low noise emissions (“Silent PC”): a comprehensive security package with TPM, SmartCard reader, and EraseDisk option; and
enhanced manageability through a combination of Intel¬ vPro™ technologies and Fujitsu’s own DeskView functionality that enables
centralized installation, personalization, management and updates of client systems. In the case of the ESPRIMO X956/T, an adjustable
touch display supports a multitude of fresh, touch-optimized applications that create a smooth, almost natural workflow and user
experience.

The ESPRIMO Q556 and Q956 are innovative mini PCs that provide all the power and functionality customers expect from an end-user
device. Like their counterparts from the FUJTISU ESPRIMO X series, they are equipped with 6th Generation Intel¬ Core™ Processors and
up to 32GB of flexibility and manageability, advanced security features, and ultra-silent operation. These products from the ESPRIMO Q
series were already designed to be energy savers that get by on 7 watts in standard idle mode. But even these two can still gain in this
regard thanks to the new energy-saving capabilities – the ESPRIMO Q956 requires less than 5 watts and the ESPRIMO Q556 only
4 watts when LPAM is on. Users only need to add a few accessories to turn them into another versatile platform for UC&C scenarios.
To provide the extended telephony and conferencing functions mentioned before, all of the above models support Microsoft Lync, but with one
small difference: the ESRIMO X series comes with an integrated presence/call & status indicator, whereas the ESPRIMO Q series requires a call &
status indicator for Lync plus the matching software if a customer wishes to implement optical and acoustic call indication.
Conclusion
Fujitsu’s innovative LPAM feature rounds out the company’s already impressive set of ’green’ technologies that allows for substantial energy
savings and cost cuts. This time the result turns out to be even more compelling, because LPAM does a lot more than that – it virtually opens up
the door for countless new usage scenarios, with a special focus on UC&C. For example, customers may now replace existing landline telephones
with modern desktops to further reduce the complexity of their IT infrastructures.
Contact
FUJITSU Technology Solutions GmbH
Address: Mies-van-der-Rohe-Str. 8, D- 80807 Munich
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.fujitsu.com/fts
2015-09-30 EM EN
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