SWINDON, United Kingdom — By early next year the Carbon Trust and British Computer Society hope to make available software that allows companies to monitor and predict energy use in their data centers.

The groups are working with Romonet, which will develop the software, to create a program allowing companies to simulate changes within the data center and equipment, forecasting energy changes before making investments in new equipment.

Data center operators will also be able to look at their costs, energy use and carbon emissions on a per service or per application basis.

The software, based on a model by the British Computer Society's data center specialist group, is expected to be available in early 2009 and will be open source. The partnership is funded by the Carbon Trust's Low Carbon Collaboration initiative and Romonet.