APC - Schneider Electric unveils StruxureWare data center energy management software

APC - Schneider Electric has introduced its StruxureWare for Data Centers platform, an energy management software suite that the company says is designed to address all aspects of the data center physical infrastructure needed to maximize availability and efficiency.

According to the company, the StruxureWare platform combines the existing Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and Data Center Facility Management (DCFM) software tools to provide data gathering, monitoring and automation, and planning and implementation functionalities enabling an integrated and multifaceted view of all the mission critical physical systems of the data center. The company says the new product offering is intended to empower data center managers by giving them access to all the data and tools they need to operate data centers that are more reliable, efficient, productive, safe and green.

“Data center environments traditionally rely on siloed management tools that require the specialized knowledge and experience of numerous IT and facility professionals leveraging specialized management dashboards to obtain the information they need,” said Kevin Brown, Vice President, Data Center Global Offer and Strategy, Schneider Electric. “With StruxureWare for Data Centers, Schneider Electric is providing a toolset from which the data center manager can access and manage across the domains of the IT room, building electrical power and power quality, facility and data center cooling, and physical security. This management software suite delivers comprehensive, accurate real time data enabling them to take action based on the complete picture of the data center.”

According to a press release issued by the company, the StruxureWare for Data Centers management software suite will offer a variety of software tools to improve both the monitoring and the operational aspects of comprehensive data center management, including:

StruxureWare for Data Centers: Monitoring Suite

The StruxureWare for Data Centers Monitoring Suite will offer a series of core and advanced options for real-time visualization, notification and reporting of the physical facility and data center systems for electrical power, cooling, security and IT infrastructure elements. The monitoring suite will include:

-- StruxureWare Central (formerly InfraStruxure Central) – A fundamental, vendor-neutral software system that provides a unified view and analysis of complex IT physical infrastructure that communicates with building, power, enterprise and network management systems to ensure quality, and increase both energy and cost efficiencies. The new StruxureWare Central for Blackberry and iPhone apps, available today, provide data center managers with the same active alarms, alarm history, device groups and current sensor values found in the StruxureWare Central desktop user interfacewithout being tied to a computer screen.

-- StruxureWare Power and StruxureWare Cooling – These advanced options build on Schneider Electric’s existing innovative and industry leading power monitoring (formerly ION Enterprise) and cooling automation (formerly Continuum) offers by adapting these offers to the specific and unique applications within data centers.

-- StruxureWare Power monitors the facility and data center electrical infrastructure from the Utility feed through to rack power. Core functions of this system include the ability to profile power and energy consumption and trends, characterize power quality events, and visually drill down from the overall view of the electrical network to the equipment level.

-- StruxureWare Cooling monitors and automates the fully integrated environmental control system for the core facility including the thermal energy plant with specialized monitoring of the data center chilled water sub-system, including cooling towers, chillers, pumps, and computer room and rack air handlers. Optional elements also include a focus on general access control, and surveillance.

StruxureWare for Data Centers: Operations Suite

StruxureWare Operations Suite is a second generation Data Center Infrastructure Management framework enabling customers to gain control of their day-to-day operations where capacity limitations, frequent changes and availability are daily challenges for data center managers.

-- StruxureWare Operations (formerly InfraStruxure Operations) is the industry leading enterprise DCIM framework providing a scalable and fault tolerant solution encompassing all aspects of modern data center management, ranging from asset and capacity control over dashboards to smart phone integration. The framework provides the ability to forecast future budgets for expanding and consolidating data center operations as well as the impact these changes would have on various aspects of the facility. Through transparency into data center key performance indicators (KPIs), customers are assisted in making informed decisions about service level agreements and controlling operational costs.

-- StruxureWare for Data Centers will provide users with multiple options to create and share a variety of management dashboards. These range from very detailed, domain specific dashboards for electrical power and cooling to higher level perspectives relevant to overall data center and single site energy management. Additionally, the dashboards offer multi-site options to support comparisons and corporate energy governance activities.

-- StruxureWare for Data Centers serves as one facet of Schneider Electric’s global StruxureWare initiative. The complete line of StruxureWare solutions are designed to provide an integrated software platform intended to simplify energy management and optimize energy usage in all types of buildings, data centers and industrial facilities. StruxureWare is the software backbone that connects Schneider Electric's comprehensive EcoStruxure energy management architecture portfolio. From a single point of access, it provides intelligent monitoring, automation, planning and reporting on critical facility management systems.

Available globally, the first offering available from the StruxureWare for Data Centers suite is StruxureWare Central v6.3 and the StruxureWare Central Mobile Application for iPhone and Blackberry, all available immediately. Other components of the StruxureWare for Data Centers software suite will be announced throughout 2011.

More Info:www.schneider-electric.com/us