END USER INSIGHT
Electric NetShelter racks, APC rack-
metered power distribution units (PDUs),
Smart-UPS uninterruptible power supplies
(UPS) and cooling equipment.
EcoStruxure IT Expert replaces that
disjointed system with a single
management console that allows a much
more comprehensive and integrated view
of the operation of the entire facility.
“Partnership is absolutely crucial for
today’s data centre environments,” said
Nick Ewing, Managing Director, EiT. “By
listening closely to the Wellcome Sanger
Institutes’s challenges and understanding
the paramount importance of its work,
we were able to recommend the most
cost-effective and innovative solution to
support its business objectives. As such,
it selected EcoStruxure, which gives it
greater visibility into the IT and power
infrastructure, while ensuring it can drive
both operational and energy efficiency.” “Visibility of power utilisation and assets
throughout the data centre is the first step
to build a complete understanding of what
the facility looks like,” said Binley. “From
that, we can make an informed decision
on how to make it more efficient. Having
the ability to see and manage more than
400 racks of critical IT equipment, and all
the components contained within each,
gives us a significant advantage and
enables a massive improvement to the
operation of the data centre.”
EcoStruxure IT Expert is highly scalable
and quick to deploy and install, allowing
thousands of devices to be connected
and discovered in less than 30 minutes.
The software is completely vendor-
neutral, allowing the user to manage all
of the critical infrastructure assets on
their network within a single solution,
leveraging data analytics that enable
smarter real-time decision-making and
ensure that any unexpected issues are
identified and quickly resolved. Results
Results
The platform, where data from assets
is stored, pooled and analysed, is highly
cybersecure and GDPR-compliant,
allowing users to view all of their assets
at any time, from anywhere and on any
device. Additionally, security, software
and patch updates are automatically
issued via the Schneider Electric Cloud,
which is hosted on Microsoft Azure to
ensure customer information is kept safe
and secure.
Previously, the Sanger facility had not
utilised a unified management platform
for its hardware assets. Such systems as
were in place had grown organically as the
data centre grew.
According to Binley: “It was perhaps
natural that the focus was on the IT
equipment housed within the data
centre and not necessarily on the
power train. The EcoStruxure solution
unifies those two important data centre
elements, giving us greater visibility of
the entire estate.”
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
EcoStruxure IT Expert was chosen, says
Binley, because it was considered best-
in-class for the institute’s requirements
after examining several competing
products. It was well suited to the
existing infrastructure in the data centre.
Because of its standards-based open-
platform architecture, it can simply
and easily integrate with hardware
from other vendors.
As well as improving the operation
of the data centre itself, EcoStruxure
IT’s management capabilities can
also be extended to other distributed
assets throughout the institute and the
broader Wellcome Genome Campus,
including its sequencers. Several other
communications equipment rooms
distributed throughout the campus are
also made visible within EcoStruxure IT’s
single pane of glass.
Another benefit of EcoStruxure IT is its
cloud-based architecture, which enables
the institute to outsource some of its
critical IT requirements to third-party
colocation providers and still manage
the infrastructure internally. The solution
provides the institute with complete
visibility of IT health, ensuring that
both the data centre manager and any
accompanying maintenance or service
providers such as EiT, are instantly notified
via email and the EcoStruxure IT Expert
smartphone application should a power
outage occur. In this way, it allows all
key stakeholders to have visibility while
enabling rapid collaboration to help quickly
resolve critical IT issues.
The payback for installing EcoStruxure IT
will be seen through reduced operating
costs, especially in terms of a reduction in
energy consumption. “From a power and
energy perspective, we expect to save
between 5–10% over the first two years in
the data centre itself,” said Binley. “We can
do that by raising the room temperature
in the data halls, currently set at 19°C, to
21°C. For a 4MW facility, that represents a
significant cost saving thanks to a reduced
cooling effort required, and as the product
matures, we would look to increase that
even further.”
The institute has ambitious targets for
improving the Power Usage Effectiveness
(PUE) rating for the data centre from
NO OTHER EDGE
DATA CENTRE IS
AS IMPORTANT
TO DISCOVERIES
ABOUT HUMAN
LIFE AS THE ONE
AT SANGER.
between 1.6 and 1.8 where it is now, to
around 1.4, which will yield even further
cost savings. “Any improvement in PUE
and energy efficiency automatically
reduces electrical spend and allows us to
repurpose investment into other areas,”
said Binley. “That means more equipment,
more scientists and more benefit to
humanity, which is the primary focus for
the Wellcome Sanger Institute.” ◊
Issue 13
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