Universities and higher education institutes often face complex challenges in providing the right services to students and staff, while meeting emissions goals. Modernisation of ICT offers numerous opportunities for efficiency, availability and reduced environmental impact, as Louisa Buckley of Schneider Electric explains.
There is no escaping the digital transformation of higher education. It has impacted everyone, forcing leaders to reform almost every element of the learning experience.
At the forefront of the transformation is technology. But there’s a problem – the paradox that while there’s more pressure than ever to evolve and innovate, many institutions are behind the curve when it comes to IT infrastructure. Universities and colleges regularly experience challenges with space constraints, ageing infrastructure, and sustainability.
The education sector can face significant challenges in supporting education and training across diverse, distributed campuses, over a wide range of disciplines, and often with an equally wide range of legacy, modern and cutting-edge infrastructure, while also protecting the institution and any intellectual property (IP) and confidential information for which it is responsible.
Modernisation of IT infrastructure in this context is much more than improving availability or efficiency; it is an enabler of better management, reduced costs, and a clearer, accelerated path to net zero.
Unique and common challenges
The challenges mentioned are not entirely unique to the education sector, as the tech industry has been dealing with them for decades, and recent developments have allowed IT estates to become more visible, manageable, and optimisable.
Advancements in areas such as Internet of Things (IoT) and instrumentation have meant the term ‘smart’ can be applied to ever more categories, from uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) to cooling systems, and buildings. Cloud-based and AI-enhanced management systems, such as data centre infrastructure management (DCIM), can span multiple environments, from on-premises to the cloud and beyond, gathering data, increasing visibility and showcasing insights for optimisation and efficiency.
Digital design and modelling
These insights begin at design, as digital design and modelling tools allow existing systems to be mapped and understood more extensively, with visualisations helping to highlight the impact of any development, protecting historical and architectural heritage. In operation, the design models go on to serve as digital twins, sandboxes for configuration, optimisation and change management.
This level of digitalisation of sensors, equipment, infrastructure, and buildings means that building management systems (BMS) can be integrated with power and cooling systems, which in turn can be managed with onsite renewable energy source (RES) generation to provide a complete picture of consumption, operations, and emissions. Tracking this level of data over time with analytic tools can allow AI-enhanced systems to optimise within specific parameters, on availability, resilience, energy consumption, user needs, and overall emissions.
This level of data allows a more complete picture of entire operations for the whole organisation, facilitating meaningful comparisons with other similar organisations, locally or globally, as well as adjacent sectors. Best practice from other areas can be examined and applied. Full Scope 1-3 emissions reporting becomes possible, with a complete picture of environmental impact. Common reporting standards and frameworks can then be adopted, or existing ones more easily applied.
Predictive and preventative maintenance
An additional benefit of this variety, richness, and depth of data is a greater scope for predictive and preventative maintenance, where anomalies are detected earlier, before they cause an outage, failure, or loss of service.
Cybersecurity
There are also benefits through modernised ICT infrastructure for cybersecurity, as vulnerabilities through the likes of peripheral devices or systems can be mitigated through network segmentation, whitelisting and traffic management, as implemented through centrally managed policies.
Education experience
Schneider Electric has extensive experience in cutting-edge new designs, modernisation, and digital transformation projects, and specifically within the education sector.
University College Dublin’s (UCD) heritage dates back more than 150 years. Its main Belfield campus has facilities from the 1960s onward and is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities.
Schneider Electric and partners successfully designed and delivered a new cooling system that provides greater data centre efficiency that has unlocked valuable real estate for redevelopment and new facilities.
The Uniflair InRow Direct Expansion (DX) cooling solution is more scalable, efficient, and provides resilient cooling for IT infrastructure. UCD’s solution is based on 10 independent InRow DX cooling units, rightsized to server load to optimise efficiency. The system is scalable to enable UCD’s IT Services Group to add further HPC clusters and accommodate future innovations in technology, including the introduction of increasingly powerful CPUs and GPUs.
Similarly, Loughborough University, one of the world’s leading sports-related universities, has undertaken a data centre modernisation project. The next-generation EcoStruxure for Data Centre solution has delivered increased resilience and efficiency, including a services agreement and EcoStruxure IT software to provide 24/7 data-driven insights with proactive maintenance and service support. The project was delivered in two phases with partners: firstly modernising its Haslegrave facility by replacing an outdated raised floor design and deploying an EcoStruxure Row Data Centre solution, an integral part of Schneider’s EcoStruxure for Data Centres architecture and IoT-enabled system. This deployment has significantly improved the overall structure, enabling an efficient data centre design.
University of Lincoln also faced resilience challenges due to a lack of standby power generating capabilities, affecting its ability to carry out work without service interruption. In modernising its UPS estate, APC UPS added resilience to the university’s network, with 110 Schneider Electric APC Smart-UPS SRT units deployed across the university’s distributed edge facilities, providing power protection and continuity in the event of disruptions or disturbances to the mains power supply.
They are managed through APC NetBotz environmental monitoring devices, as well as EcoStruxure IT Expert and Data Centre Expert DCIM. This not only enables the IT team to prioritise ongoing remedial tasks and respond more quickly to unforeseen events and outages, but has also allowed cooling in the data centres and edge facilities to be optimised for greater operational efficiency and lower power consumption.
Expected standards
These various experiences have allowed each of these leading universities to achieve greater operational efficiency and visibility of overall consumption and impact, as well as operational insights and optimisations that feed into net zero targets and ambitions.
As a coordinated strategy for modernisation, increased digitalisation and optimisation provide unparalleled opportunities for educational institutions to meet their unique challenges while improving services to students, faculties and researchers, and reaching net zero ambitions.
For more from Schneider Electric, click here.
The post Simplifying higher education IT infrastructure complexity appeared first on Data Centre & Network News.
Universities and higher education institutes often face complex challenges in providing the right services to students and staff, while meeting emissions goals. Modernisation of ICT offers numerous opportunities for efficiency, availability and reduced environmental impact, as Louisa Buckley of Schneider Electric explains.
There is no escaping the digital transformation of higher education. It has impacted everyone, forcing leaders to reform almost every element of the learning experience.
At the forefront of the transformation is technology. But there’s a problem – the paradox that while there’s more pressure than ever to evolve and innovate, many institutions are behind the curve when it comes to IT infrastructure. Universities and colleges regularly experience challenges with space constraints, ageing infrastructure, and sustainability.
The education sector can face significant challenges in supporting education and training across diverse, distributed campuses, over a wide range of disciplines, and often with an equally wide range of legacy, modern and cutting-edge infrastructure, while also protecting the institution and any intellectual property (IP) and confidential information for which it is responsible.
Modernisation of IT infrastructure in this context is much more than improving availability or efficiency; it is an enabler of better management, reduced costs, and a clearer, accelerated path to net zero.
Unique and common challenges
The challenges mentioned are not entirely unique to the education sector, as the tech industry has been dealing with them for decades, and recent developments have allowed IT estates to become more visible, manageable, and optimisable.
Advancements in areas such as Internet of Things (IoT) and instrumentation have meant the term ‘smart’ can be applied to ever more categories, from uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) to cooling systems, and buildings. Cloud-based and AI-enhanced management systems, such as data centre infrastructure management (DCIM), can span multiple environments, from on-premises to the cloud and beyond, gathering data, increasing visibility and showcasing insights for optimisation and efficiency.
Digital design and modelling
These insights begin at design, as digital design and modelling tools allow existing systems to be mapped and understood more extensively, with visualisations helping to highlight the impact of any development, protecting historical and architectural heritage. In operation, the design models go on to serve as digital twins, sandboxes for configuration, optimisation and change management.
This level of digitalisation of sensors, equipment, infrastructure, and buildings means that building management systems (BMS) can be integrated with power and cooling systems, which in turn can be managed with onsite renewable energy source (RES) generation to provide a complete picture of consumption, operations, and emissions. Tracking this level of data over time with analytic tools can allow AI-enhanced systems to optimise within specific parameters, on availability, resilience, energy consumption, user needs, and overall emissions.
This level of data allows a more complete picture of entire operations for the whole organisation, facilitating meaningful comparisons with other similar organisations, locally or globally, as well as adjacent sectors. Best practice from other areas can be examined and applied. Full Scope 1-3 emissions reporting becomes possible, with a complete picture of environmental impact. Common reporting standards and frameworks can then be adopted, or existing ones more easily applied.
Predictive and preventative maintenance
An additional benefit of this variety, richness, and depth of data is a greater scope for predictive and preventative maintenance, where anomalies are detected earlier, before they cause an outage, failure, or loss of service.
Cybersecurity
There are also benefits through modernised ICT infrastructure for cybersecurity, as vulnerabilities through the likes of peripheral devices or systems can be mitigated through network segmentation, whitelisting and traffic management, as implemented through centrally managed policies.
Education experience
Schneider Electric has extensive experience in cutting-edge new designs, modernisation, and digital transformation projects, and specifically within the education sector.
University College Dublin’s (UCD) heritage dates back more than 150 years. Its main Belfield campus has facilities from the 1960s onward and is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities.
Schneider Electric and partners successfully designed and delivered a new cooling system that provides greater data centre efficiency that has unlocked valuable real estate for redevelopment and new facilities.
The Uniflair InRow Direct Expansion (DX) cooling solution is more scalable, efficient, and provides resilient cooling for IT infrastructure. UCD’s solution is based on 10 independent InRow DX cooling units, rightsized to server load to optimise efficiency. The system is scalable to enable UCD’s IT Services Group to add further HPC clusters and accommodate future innovations in technology, including the introduction of increasingly powerful CPUs and GPUs.
Similarly, Loughborough University, one of the world’s leading sports-related universities, has undertaken a data centre modernisation project. The next-generation EcoStruxure for Data Centre solution has delivered increased resilience and efficiency, including a services agreement and EcoStruxure IT software to provide 24/7 data-driven insights with proactive maintenance and service support. The project was delivered in two phases with partners: firstly modernising its Haslegrave facility by replacing an outdated raised floor design and deploying an EcoStruxure Row Data Centre solution, an integral part of Schneider’s EcoStruxure for Data Centres architecture and IoT-enabled system. This deployment has significantly improved the overall structure, enabling an efficient data centre design.
University of Lincoln also faced resilience challenges due to a lack of standby power generating capabilities, affecting its ability to carry out work without service interruption. In modernising its UPS estate, APC UPS added resilience to the university’s network, with 110 Schneider Electric APC Smart-UPS SRT units deployed across the university’s distributed edge facilities, providing power protection and continuity in the event of disruptions or disturbances to the mains power supply.
They are managed through APC NetBotz environmental monitoring devices, as well as EcoStruxure IT Expert and Data Centre Expert DCIM. This not only enables the IT team to prioritise ongoing remedial tasks and respond more quickly to unforeseen events and outages, but has also allowed cooling in the data centres and edge facilities to be optimised for greater operational efficiency and lower power consumption.
Expected standards
These various experiences have allowed each of these leading universities to achieve greater operational efficiency and visibility of overall consumption and impact, as well as operational insights and optimisations that feed into net zero targets and ambitions.
As a coordinated strategy for modernisation, increased digitalisation and optimisation provide unparalleled opportunities for educational institutions to meet their unique challenges while improving services to students, faculties and researchers, and reaching net zero ambitions.
For more from Schneider Electric, click here.
The post Simplifying higher education IT infrastructure complexity appeared first on Data Centre & Network News.