The past year ushered in new opportunities and a rekindled hope as the world continues its shift towards the next normal. Throughout the pandemic, there was a significant shift in IT prioritization, pushing organizations to reevaluate their technology spending and accelerate IT investment plans.
During the CXO Innovation Summit—the largest annual convention where key players in the Philippines discuss IT infrastructure, modernization, and digital transformation—global specialist in energy management and automation Schneider Electric, represented by Solutions Architect Harold Lim and Product Application Engineer Roy Lorenzo Jimenez, shared in-depth data on the data centers of the future, the modernization of resilient and efficient solutions at the Edge, and the critical facilities that support digital transformation across industries.
Introducing the Data Centers of the Future
The move to a more automated world is accelerating fast. The shift towards digital transformation is enabled by data centers. As all data flows in and out of data centers, a hybrid data center architecture is becoming increasingly common to support this digital transformation. Schneider Electric is committed to driving the four pillars that support the future of data center performance: sustainability, efficiency, adaptability, and resilience. In the future, more data center capacity and local edge centers at scale will be needed to meet the demand for data. Moreover, these data centers should be as sustainable as possible to lessen the electrical footprint globally.
“Schneider Electric specializes in physical infrastructure for all sizes of data centers,” said Lim. “We have designed and packaged integrated systems in innovative ways by leveraging digital tools for IT room, power systems, and cooling systems. We also provide applications, analytics, and services for the building, power, and IT domains of the data center. By partnering with global leader in industrial automation AVEVA, Schneider Electric brings end-to-end operational visibility across large data center facilities.”
Moreover, Schneider Electric presents opportunities for companies to make the most out of their energy and resources. The company has spent the past years making data centers more efficient and reliable from design to deployment. Data centers of the past were very inefficient, static, and unreliable—Schneider has leveraged years of expertise in this field to provide the most connected solutions, while helping companies reach their sustainability targets.
Driving Connectivity through Resiliency
Network or equipment failure has become a problem for many companies. Cloud computing solutions tend to be susceptible to these kinds of failures because data is managed on a centralized platform. However, edge computing solutions bring data closer to the source and this can result in minimized downtime and operational efficiency.
Schneider Electric has compiled the largest portfolio of solutions that spans from rack to row to room to building. Its solutions span from small components all the way up to building level power and cooling. Schneider Electric ensures that its devices are designed with the latest encryption to strengthen its data privacy and security. Moreover, it has built expertise in IT infrastructure to deploy solutions that can be remotely management without the vendor.
“Schneider Electric provides opportunities to create more resilient data centers. We have achieved this by leveraging technologies to monitor data center operating conditions in real-time,” said Jimenez, who led the presentation on modern data resilience. “We have invested in two or more internet service providers for better data security. Furthermore, we have deployed arms and other alerting devices to signal when specific performance thresholds have been exceeded.”
Utilizing Critical Facilities in Support of Digital Transformation
Many companies have been leveraging IoT and AI to accelerate change and digitize their work. However, these technologies require a different type of computing support to meet business objectives. These supporting infrastructures should reduce latency, ensure data privacy and security, be able to handle mountains of data, support interactive experiences, and ensure remote management in autonomous locations. Edge computing delivers these objectives by moving computing closer to the source which is critical in industries such as retail, finance, healthcare, education, and manufacturing.
Edge computing is a type of IT deployment that moves data away from big, cloud-based data centers. However, deploying edge solutions comes with challenges in physical security and software management as many IT personnel lack the skills and resources needed to maintain such solutions. On top of that, there are environmental challenges at play such as the kind of environment in which it is built and the lack of enough power and security to deploy these solutions. A comprehensive management solution with distributed IT architecture, along with an ecosystem of partners, can address these environmental considerations and deploy a complete edge solution.
“Schneider Electric’s Data Center Portfolio simplifies deployment and IT management with increased availability and resiliency through its integrated systems,” said Lim. “Schneider Electric also presents Micro Data Center Solutions for customization or deployment in different kinds of environments, utilizing an intelligent infrastructure approach to simplify the design, deployment, and management at the Edge. Through our solutions, Schneider Electric further enables digital transformation for our customers.”
