HP said Monday's roll-out of 11 new ProLiant G6 low-end and midrange servers was its biggest ever in the company's history. The lineup includes three blade servers, five rack servers and three tower servers. The systems will be available on Monday starting at $1,000. The systems include a number of enhancements that could see cut energy costs.

A power management technology offered by HP can cap power consumption by a set of servers. Another unique feature is the inclusion of 32 sensors in each server that can track and dynamically reduce server power consumption. Sensors measure thermal activity of components like fans, and algorithms use the data to adjust operation of the components to cool systems more efficiently.

IBM on Monday introduced four new Nehalem-based rack servers and blades feature unique designs that can slash energy costs up to 50 percent, according to the company. The offerings include the IBM BladeCenter HS22 blade server, System x3650 M2 and System x3550 M2 rack servers. IBM is also launching the System x iDataPlex dx360 M2, which is designed for data centers, and provides up to five times the compute density versus traditional 1U rack servers while cooling systems more efficiently, according to the company. The server pricing starts $2,125.

Software tools are also being offered with the servers to cut energy and system maintenance costs. Dell and IBM are offering software, called the Dell Management Console and Systems Director 6.1, respectively, making it easier for enterprises to manage hardware, software and networking resources across virtualized environments. HP is offering tools to manage power consumption by groups of servers, and tools to manage operations spread over virtual machines in a virtualized server environment.

HP and Dell are also plugging system management and diagnostic tools directly into the hardware. That will ease fixing and updating systems, and delivery of software like product updates on a timely basis, the vendors said. Servers usually ship with installation CDs, but the software will now go on a chip instead and save users from fumbling around to find the right installation discs.