EnergyCenter may provide less of a granular, real-time view than some other tools, but it's still a good starting point for the many data centers that are not measuring energy use at all, said Jed Scaramella, senior research analyst for servers and energy efficiency at IDC.

"It doesn't have that real-time data, but real-time data is going to cost more and not everybody needs it yet. At the price point they are coming in at, this can be an effective tool that is very easy to deploy," he said.

Viridity sells its product on an annual subscription basis starting at about US$25,000. It is available today in North America, and the company is looking for partners to help sell it in Europe. It says it has six customers using the product today.