Sustainable IT Solutions

Data center downtime can cost a business as much as $1 million an hour. This incentivizes solution providers to meet the mission of keeping those costs in check.  

Solutions providing reliability and resiliency - the keys to fighting downtime - provide both established and new pathways to keeping customers up and running.  

At this moment, with data centers now a focal point for urgent change, industry leaders are touting a new age of best practices to protect investments and boost opportunity.  

Schneider Electric is working to make the stakes clear. 

“Robust power systems must integrate both concepts; digital technologies, predictive analytics, and consultative services provide the tools to balance these two critical aspects,” writes Jerome Soltani, senior vice president of U.S. Services for Schneider Electric, in a recent blog post.  

Advances in AI, challenges in cybersecurity, and here-to-stay hybrid work environments also create an array of new considerations when maintaining data centers and focusing on uptime.  

According to Soltani, KPIs of note for data centers include production uptime, mean time between failures (MTBF) and Machine Downtime Rate. Four or five 9s (such as 99.999 percent) is another key metric for a data center’s objective.  

“Achieving these reliability and availability metrics requires robust design, proactive maintenance, and continuous monitoring,” Soltani notes.  

Proven solutions can be key when engaging customers about uptime.  

A prime example is EcoStruxure IT Expert, which can monitor system health as well as gather information in real-time about the health of key pieces of hardware, software, networking, or IoT devices so proactive maintenance or even replacements can take place in time to be effective.  

That includes predictive analytics to keep solution providers and their customers ahead of the curve and much less likely to be caught off guard by a failed drive, fan, cable, or connector.  

And keep in mind that Schneider Electric has developed EcoStruxure IT to keep an eye on sustainability and efficiency, the platform’s eagle eye on issues like heat and airflow - indicators of potential crashes. The company’s technology and solutions have long been among industry leaders even before tabs for downtime reached seven-figures per hour.  

Solution providers can go here for more information on Schneider Electric’s partner program.