Efficiencies and sustainability are just as vital as “uptime”
This content has been provided by Schneider Electrical and is being published by NZME as advertorial.
By Jason Molloy, Schneider Electric, Secure Power Lead, New Zealand
The data centre sector in New Zealand is experiencing rapid growth and transformation. Our increasingly digital lifestyles require ongoing data centre accessibility – online shopping, virtual meetings and mobile phone apps all anchor back to a data centre and the computers and servers within them.
To sustain this growth, scalable data centre architecture is critical, and New Zealand businesses need to look ahead now to support future demand.
Creating opportunities through the digital economy, data centres have been able to keep industries going as workers and business owners pivot to use their internet and IT services in new and exciting ways.
Businesses that were previously only brick-and-mortar locations have moved on to create online stores and service portals, while restrictions in people movement meant that virtual and augmented reality solutions were brought to the fore for training and education. Many of these shifts came out of necessity, but as they have proven to be effective and attractive, in many cases the changes are here to stay.
Data centre dynamics
Data centres are the heart of this digital economy and we have seen a massive acceleration in their growth, particularly in Auckland over the past three years.
Although they vary in size, uses, networking, technology, and scalability, they are all part of a unique supply chain that brings goods and services to the world. Whether it be a co-location facility or a cloud-based environment, we use data centres to collect, store, manage and analyse data, as well as for backup, disaster recovery and networking options.
Modern set-ups allow businesses to expand and contract their data centre capacity as needed, ensuring they operate effectively and efficiently. Not surprisingly, we have seen an exponential increase in data centre traffic over the past few years, reflecting businesses increased reliance on data centres and their essential role in the new economy.
For those working in the data centre space, finding efficiencies and promoting sustainability is fast becoming as important as ensuring uptime. To empower data centre professionals to achieve these advancements, Schneider Electric is making an ongoing investment in EcoStruxure IT, its portfolio of data centre infrastructure management software that offers resilient, secure, and sustainable hybrid IT infrastructure.
Offering greater visibility, data-driven insights, and recommendations to drive the highest availability of operations, the software can result in a 25 per cent increase in energy savings, 35 per cent faster problem resolution and up to 60 per cent faster deployment times.
We have also seen massive improvements in the efficiency and sustainability of data centre hardware. For example, using lithium-ion batteries for UPSs (uninterruptible power supplies) instead of lead acid batteries results in an increase of around 20 times the battery charge cycles. What this means is greater reliability, fewer maintenance visits, and lower operating costs.
Across all sectors
Data centres continue to support growth across all sectors of the New Zealand economy. As businesses and people increase their data requirements, so too data centre infrastructure will grow to support the economy.
Schneider Electric is successfully helping data centre operators meet their sustainability goals; particularly by sourcing sustainable materials that follow best practices for recycling, durability, upgrades, and repairs. Today, 78 per cent of Schneider Electric products are covered by Product Environmental Profiles, which provide embodied carbon calculations.
We are enabling further energy reductions using DCIM planning and modelling functions. These tools work to better match power consumption to the IT load by turning down or turning off idle infrastructure resources. The software can also be used to consolidate the IT load to reduce both IT energy consumption as well as power losses from the supporting infrastructure.
With so many business systems and devices requiring robust IT infrastructure, helping to modernise critical IT will help to build a more sustainable and energy efficient future.
To find out more, visit www.se.com/nz