Building a data center is challenging, especially with the rigorous industrial and technological standards it is required to comply with. The evolution of “green” technologies also raised the bar for data centers, and has created a new generation of facilities that aim to maximize IT resources while being energy-efficient.

Thus Eastern Communications’ Product Development Group, together with Rene Castillo, vice president for Service Delivery, kept all these in mind when plans were made to upgrade and expand the company’s data center facilities and managed services. Clients’ needs had prompted Eastern Communications to build DataHub, the company’s first “green” data center.

DataHub is equipped with best-in-class Tier II technologies, and is Eastern Communications’ most energy efficient, secure, and reliable facility. The DataHub is also the Philippines’ first Tier II data center that has a redundant site infrastructure and guarantees 99.741 percent uptime.

“Our business model is to provide our clients an outsourced and integrated data storage, recovery and management service,” says Castillo. “Given that our clients are corporations, this means our availability goal must be able to comply and support their stringent corporate requirements, specifically on having redundant, continuous power, and Internet connectivity.”

DataHub also features an extensive number of security and safety capabilities, such as precision-controlled air cooling and fire suppression, network monitoring, surveillance cameras, and biometrics systems.

In addition, the new IDC operates with industry-compliant energy efficient policies and guidelines augmented by new and optimized equipment to help maintain, track, and audit the massive power required of a 24/7/365 IT facility.

Finding a solutions provider to build DataHub was easy for Eastern Communications Castillo says they chose APC by Schneider Electric together with IBM Philippines for their track record and successful partnership in the deployment of data-center solutions. Eastern decided on a turnkey project engagement, which meant that APC would supply solutions for the data center and also be engaged to manage and oversee the project. This included supervising the implementation that covered other aspects such as mechanical, electrical, civil, fire suppression and IT security for data centers.

More specifically, Eastern Communications installed the APC InfrastruXure (ISX) solution that fully integrates power, cooling, rack, management, security and services. This on-demand architecture allows the selection of standardized components to create a solution through modular and mobile configurations. The APC InfrastruXure solution includes the InfrastruXure Central, a management software for centralized environmental and power monitoring of installed components.

To ensure optimal uptime, Eastern Communications picked the APC by Schneider Electric’s Galaxy PW Power Protection System that has an on-line double conversion technology to isolate between power input and output. This ensures zero transfer time of power for critical loads. Several Galaxy PW can easily be linked for higher power capacity requirements or redundancy if and when the need arises.

The APC solution for Eastern Communications’ DataHub is capable of supporting petabytes of digital information for co-location, business continuity, and disaster recovery service offerings. It is capable of running on full capacity at maximum operational efficiency, as required by current market demands.

At the core of DataHub are energy efficiency-enabled technologies and offerings, a benefit enjoyed by APC by Schneider Electric customers because of the cost-saving and environment-friendly features.

Philippe Reveilhac, country president of Schneider Electric Philippines, sees Eastern Communications’ DataHub as a showcase of the best features of a green data center that can provide the much-needed data services for local corporations, which are the key contributors to the country’s economic recovery.

“APC by Schneider Electric is always ready to provide the best and ideal power and cooling solutions for all types of data centers,” says Reveilhac. “The Eastern Communications’ DataHub is a prime example of how our team of data center experts can build best-of-breed solutions that deliver results.”

He adds that these solutions feature state-of-the-art data center manageability and “energy efficiency features that can help our clients achieve up to 30 percent energy savings; at the same time, these ensure continued operations and high performance. Reveilhac notes that these are also modular and scalable, and thus easy to adapt to clients’ infrastructure requirements. “APC is here to help our clients create data centers that provide the best services available yet provide the highest returns on investment by implementing energy efficient practices,” says Reveilhac.

The DataHub project is a joint undertaking of two multinational IT companies — IBM Philippines and APC by Schneider Electric — with the former being appointed as a certified partner of Eastern Communications, and the latter as the implementation party. The two companies recently launched a global campaign called Scalable Modular Data Center (SMDC), which combines APC’s award-winning InfraStruxure architecture and IBM’s global service capabilities. With SMDC, customers are able to deploy a high-density environment rapidly with a preexisting data center, thus reducing up-front capital and ongoing operational costs.

APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services, today announced the InRow OA and Refrigerant Distribution Unit (RDU) pumped refrigerant cooling system. The APC InRow OA expands APC’s leading InRow product line by providing an overhead, energy efficient, refrigerant based cooling solution for data center environments.

“Data center densities continue to increase and efficiency concerns encourage customers to maximize all the available space for physical infrastructure,” said Dave Guidette, senior vice president, Enterprise Systems, Services & Software, APC. “The new APC InRow OA and RDU provide data center managers with increased flexibility by eliminating the need to remove or break-up racks to implement a row-based cooling architecture to meet the needs of higher density loads.”

Ideal for medium and high density applications, the new APC InRow OA captures up to 27kW of hot IT exhaust air at the source, neutralizes it and discharges cool, ambient air to the IT space. The OA includes integrated thermal containment, which eliminates mixing of hot and cold air streams – improving cooling predictability. Modular construction, variable speed fans, and active response controls are all integrated into one high efficiency system. The over head design requires zero whitespace, because it can be mounted on a rack or suspended from the ceiling above the hot aisle, improving flexibility and the ability to adapt to existing data center environments.

This refrigerant based system has been developed to eliminate the threat from water leaks in close proximity to IT equipment. The refrigerant used in this modular, pumped system is R134a, a non-toxic solution that poses no threat to IT equipment in the event of a leak, and has no Ozone depletion potential.

The RDU is a refrigerant distribution unit capable of providing 160kW of heat rejection to the APC InRow OA cooling units, and its modular construction, variable speed pumps, and active response controls are integrated into the highly efficient variable volume pumping system. The RDU has the ability to modulate capacity from 0-100 percent with no minimum loading requirements and may be placed in the IT environment or in an adjacent location to further increase whitespace utilization for IT equipment.

Other key components to this system include modular piping headers and the mounting structure of the APC InRow OA. The piping headers are an integrated part of the mounting structure of the APC InRow OA to simplify installation and reduce initial investment costs.

Key benefits of new APC InRow OA include:

·         Ability to maximize available floor space for IT equipment

·         Address concerns of water in the data center

·         30-50% more efficient than traditional raised floor data center cooling

·         Elimination of hot spots caused by high density deployments

·         Flexibility to easily deploy and redeploy cooling

·         Simple to install minimizing initial investment

The new APC InRow OA and Refrigerant Distribution Unit are currently available in worldwide.

For information, visit www.apc.com.

APC by Schneider Electric announced the formation of a new specialized data center software business to focus and drive a leadership position across all aspects of the data center environment . The Data Center Software business will be responsible for advancing all software and management systems for the data center physical infrastructure. The team will have direct accountability for software development, offer creation, sales, service, marketing and partner programs.

“By establishing a new and dedicated software business with a clear strategy and focus, we are showing our true commitment to become the global leader in software for data centers,” said Laurent Vernerey, President and CEO of APC. “This evolution within APC is well aligned with the Schneider Electric vision of becoming the world leader in energy management.”

The Data Center Software business will be a key contributor to Schneider Electric’s Ecostruxure architecture, and a strong supporter of Schneider Electric’s energy management initiatives. APC’s InfraStruxure management software portfolio, a critical element of Ecostruxure, will be the focus of this team. Through InfraStruxure, the Data Center Software business will simplify and drive energy and operational efficiency entitlements across all aspects of the data center.

According to The 451 Group report “Datacenter Management & Energy-Efficiency Software” [July 2009], “Schneider Electric has the scale, brand, vision and penetration to take a leadership position in data center energy management software; its size is also helping it make important alli­ances. InfraStruxure is currently just one of several offerings in this market, but it has the potential to be a clear leader.”

The APC InfraStruxure management software portfolio helps companies improve energy and cost efficiencies, and supports short- and long-term planning, forecasting and budgeting. With this portfolio data center managers and IT executives have the ability to take a holistic view of data center physical infrastructure service quality, end-to-end energy use, and the various costs associated with it. The vendor-neutral software provides the industry’s first and broadest integrations with critical IT support systems, including power management, building management and enterprise management, enabling the monitoring, controlling and resolving of issues in a user-friendly environment.

The software portfolio includes InfraStruxure Operations – for daily operations and inventory management; InfraStruxure Central – for data gathering and monitoring, InfraStruxure Capacity, InfraStruxure Change – for planning and optimization; and InfraStruxure Energy Efficiency – for energy analysis and modeling down to the server location in a rack.

This specialized business will be led by Soeren B. Jensen, Vice President, Data Center Software, APC, with direct accountability to Laurent Vernerey, President and CEO, APC, and a dedicated supervisory board.

October 8, 2009

APC by Schneider Electric, a global provider of integrated critical power, cooling and management services, has appointed Philippe Reveilhac as country general manager for the Philippines. In this role, Reveilhac will be responsible for leading the local team to drive growth for the company in the Philippines, and to further strengthen APC’s position as a trusted advisor to businesses looking for innovative and energy efficient solutions for their data centers, server rooms and even wiring closets.

APC vice president for ASEAN Teng Seen Khoo said, “It’s a great pleasure to welcome Philippe Reveilhac to APC, and we are pleased to have a proven leader with solid industry credentials to take over operations in the Philippines. His experience, maturity and profile will ensure our customers, and partners continue to enjoy energy savings but also improved manageability and performance of their data centers.”

Reveilhac has more than 15 years of IT industry experience as well as a strong background in business and people management. His career initially started with parent company Schneider Electric prior to the APC-MGE merger in 1994. Since then, he has held regional positions with the company. Prior to this appointment, he was the vice president of Central Europe for APC by Schneider Electric where he managed the merger and integration of APC and MGE entities, and improved the profits in the region.

“APC by Schneider Electric has been committed to the Philippine market for over 13 years, and will continue doing so in the years to come. I’m looking forward to working closely with the local team to cultivate long-term and trusted relationships with our customers. I am confident we will see a greater drive towards energy efficiency in businesses,” said Reveilhac. “APC is in a strong position to deliver innovative solutions that will not only help these businesses make the most of their energy consumption, but save on their operating costs as well.”

Datacenters are today beset by the challenges of high electricity costs and efficiency. In fact, it is estimated that energy consumption at datacenters grows at a breakneck rate of 12% yearly, doubling every six years. This, compared to overall energy consumption which doubles only every approximately 40 years.

Additionally, energy consumption is the fastest growing expense of datacenters, and predicted to become eight times that being spent on server growth over the next five years. Meanwhile, server management and administration costs are expected to rise only four times as quickly. These new faster, more powerful servers in turn are consuming more power, and giving off more heat.

In the Philippines, where business process outsourcing (BPO) companies running datacenters have proliferated over the last decade, this is a spectacular concern. Estimates reveal that the global IT-BPO market is expected to reach $450 billion, with next year already hitting a penetrated market worth $130 billion, hinting at the possibility that demand will outpace supply for many years. In the Philippines, the BPO industry aims to capture 10 percent of that market overall. This year alone, the local business is seen to expand by 20 to 30%. One can only imagine the huge energy demands this will require.

Despite this enormous requirement for energy, BPO datacenters are constrained by another challenge: that many buildings they are located in cannot provide more power due to a limited energy infrastructure. As a result, the centers are running inefficiently and clocking up more energy costs, thus limiting funds that could otherwise be spent on deploying new applications and making the business more profitable.

Smart designs, smart management

In the face of enormous need to become more energy efficient while curbing energy costs, it is important for local business process outsourcing companies to embark on datacenter assessment initiatives to help business tremendously.

“For starters, this process can optimize existing datacenters,” said Oscar Sañez, President of Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). “Member companies of BPA/P are looking at new designs to make their data centers more energy efficient by referring to detailed efficiency data on products and complete systems. They are also considering the most efficient datacenter solutions in the form of leading power and cooling equipment.”

Overall, what is needed are automated, open and integrated systems that not only protect and connect people and BPO assets, but also secure power for critical applications, streamline the use of power, and provide renewable energy solutions at every phase of the lifecycle.

APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services through its country manager in the Philippines, Pascal Bodin said “One way to avoid waste is by deploying a scalable architecture”. He adds, “Right-sizing with the use of modular architecture allows datacenters to scale their operations based on the load. This is an important first step is it avoids the pitfalls of oversizing, eliminates inefficiency and wastage of unused power and cooling capacity.”

Designed for efficiency

The next step to eliminate energy waste is to consider the design of datacenters. This is not only done with the use of modular and scalable components, but also by placing cooling units near the heat source, containing the flow of heat in high-density zones and using instrumented intelligence to optimize use of power and cooling capacity.

This last component is part of a smart management, where datacenters can monitor, analyze, model, and forecast power consumption. This enables the datacenters to know where the power goes, add IT equipment without breaker trips, add IT equipment without overheating, maximize the amount of IT equipment in the room and manage IT asset inventory.

“With the increasing call to slash the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere,” said Bodin, “it’s now really critical to be more environmentally conscious and adopt green IT.”

Cutting costs w/o compromising efficiency

APC by Schneider Electric, supports BPOs in optimizing their datacenters – providing application guidance from experienced sales engineers who validate design concepts, basic sizing and specification and translate datacenters’ clear needs into configured solutions. APC also ensures professional datacenter assessment services such as datacenter efficiency and carbon impact assessment, and power and cooling needs for capacities and reliability.

“The key,” said Bodin, “is to offer turnkey solutions that meet the specific user needs, supported by a standardized, repeatable processes. These processes, like the physical architecture of the hardware, are modular and configurable, assembled using best-of-breed components to provide a one-of-a-kind custom design.”

He further explained that the process involves standardized equipment configurations, procedures (operation, maintenance, monitoring, labeling (circuits, piping, emergency instructions) and documentation (manuals, record-keeping).

“We look at the issue as an opportunity to solve the whole problem – look at the data center as a complete system, not just components. Sure we also make the best components, but standardizing and simplifying the design, plan build and operate process has exponential benefits in reliability, compatibility, efficiency and TCO.”, Bodin elaborated.

State of the industry

“BPA/P has identified the datacenter as a priority that needs attention and improvement, “said Sañez of BPA/P, “that’s why we are seriously considering a number of solutions – both as an association and as individual companies – to comply with environment-friendly guidelines followed by responsible businesses, particularly at a time when energy consumption has a profound impact of the global economic crisis.”

Cost-efficiency was the focus of BPA/P’s recent senior executive meeting entitled “State of the BPO Industry: The Mid-Year Report.” The discussions were spearheaded by leading analysts and key industry players, who shared insights and perspectives on the state of the Philippine BPO industry and its prospects for continued growth in challenging times.

APC by Schneider Electric has announced that it was selected as a winner in the Energy Efficient Products category of the 2009 Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards, presented by the Uptime Institute and co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Award winners were announced at a ceremony at Uptime Institute’s 4th Annual Institute Research Symposium: LEAN, CLEAN and GREEN, in New York City. Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and best-selling author delivered the ceremony’s keynote address. 

The GEIT Awards honor companies that have made significant strides in creating reliable, sustainable and energy-efficient data centers. APC’s InRow cooling products with active response controls and integrated thermal containment was selected as a winner for its innovation and leadership in driving sustainability initiatives.

“We congratulate and honor APC for its pioneering work in reducing energy consumption in data centers,” said Kenneth G. Brill, founder and executive director of the Uptime Institute. “APC’s successful initiatives serve as a great example to its industry peers of the realistic impact and feasibility of energy efficiency initiatives.”

“We are pleased to receive this award recognizing our continued commitment to providing the best products and solutions to support our customers’ initiatives to achieve efficiency in the data center,” said Dave Guidette, senior vice president, Enterprise Systems and Service, APC.

All GEIT Awards winners presented case studies at the Institute’s symposium–LEAN, CLEAN and GREEN–of their award-winning initiatives for addressing the data center energy efficiency challenge. APC shared lessons learned and its route to success to encourage its industry peers to be advocates of change in their own organizations. The GEIT Awards judging criteria were specifically designed to select projects with potential to serve as business case studies of the realistic impact and feasibility of energy efficiency initiatives.

For more information on APC’s InRow cooling products, please call +63 (02) 899-6690 or visitwww.apc.com.