The cloud has become the place to be for building performance management solutions that focus on sustainability.

With the launch of its IntelliCommand system this week, Jones Lang LaSalle joined the small but growing list of companies that have turned to cloud-computing with expanded services for managing buildings, their environmental impact and their performance.

IntelliCommand made its debut at the CoreNet Global Summit for commercial real estate professionals after about a year of beta testing, said Dan Probst, the chairman of energy and sustainability services at JLL.

"We really put it through the wringer," Probst told me. "It's ready for primetime."

We recently reported on Johnson Controls' impending commercial launch of its cloud-hosted building efficiency applications and services called Panoptix, which blends technology, live support from systems experts, and social networking for users and other green building devotees.

Last week, Serious Energy rolled out the latest development related to its year-old energy management business. The firm introduced SeriousCapital, a service that enables building owners and tenants to upgrade their premises for greater energy efficiency without paying any upfront costs. The work and Serious Energy's fee are paid for with savings realized from the retrofits. Serious Energy -- previously branded as Serious Materials to emphasize its manufacturing of more sustainable building materials -- is partnering with Grubb & Ellis to market SeriousCapital.

JLL is the first commercial real estate company to bring its portfolio services and building sustainability programs into the cloud. The solution reflects the perspective of a firm whose forte is property, from investment, to building and facilities management and green leasing.

Like other firms providing building performance management in the cloud, JLL describes its offering as an end-to-end solution. When I asked Probst what the difference is between his company's service and any other, he replied: "It's truly an integrated, end-to-end solution."

IntelliCommand, which is powered by technology from Pacific Controls Inc., pulls data from the building systems for energy, lighting, heating and cooling, fire and safety monitoring, and security to do its work. Competing services have yet to unite all those aspects of building management in a single cloud-hosted solution, although a representative for Johnson Controls said early on that he anticipates that Panoptix will soon add apps to harness information from fire, safety and security systems in buildings.

Next Page: How IntelliCommand works