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At Schneider Electric, we work with companies that own and operate dozens of data centers worldwide as well as some of the largest in the world. In working with these companies, we’ve uncovered what appears to be a hidden truth: running data centers is not typically a core competency for these folks. That won’t be a surprise to any enterprise company. If you’re in finance, retail or just about any other vertical industry, your core competency lies in producing and selling whatever it is your company is all about. Running the data center is simply a critical supporting function, not a core competency. It’s much the same even for colocation companies, many of which operate like real estate companies at heart. They’re focused on buying buildings and selling space; it just so happens the space houses data centers. Often, they grow through acquisition, which means they may have data centers in their portfolio coming from companies with wildly divergent views on best practices in data cen...

At the recent DCD>Edge Summit, an overarching discussion was the true definition of edge. Most view edge as an emerging concept and classify an edge data center by its size and/or location. But what I said, during a panel discussion , made attendees realize that edge is not entirely new and might not be what they think it is. Compute power close to a core group of users has long been implemented — from enterprise to education, retail and more. Wiring closets, for example, are a form of edge. What has changed is the importance and capabilities of these mini data centers, which have grown as technology has advanced to more a hybrid environment. Businesses are now figuring out how to better leverage the mix, but, in essence, the end goal of these environments and edge is the same. Imagine a scenario where a large bank runs a multi-megawatt facility outside of its headquarters but not quite in the middle of nowhere. Typically, that would be considered an enterprise data center. Then ...

The Data Center Science Center makes the system architecture simple to understand with a new FAQ app note SO…EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric’s name for our IoT-enabled, open, and interoperable system architecture.  A system architecture is a conceptual model that defines the structure and behaviour of a system.  In the case of EcoStruxure, the system is comprised of 3 levels: connected products, edge control software, and cloud-based apps/analytics/services. It takes great advantage of IoT, cloud, and Big Data analytics technologies to bring unprecedented insight into data center operations. The EcoStruxure architecture maximizes the value of data to deliver improved safety, reliability, efficiency, and sustainability for our customers and their data centers.     It sounds wonderful, but, what does all that mean in reality?  How is that value achieved through the architecture?  And what the heck is “edge control software”??  There’s been a lot o...