In selling edge computing solutions, IT solution providers should take into account the whole picture – hardware, software and services. Unlike data centers, where it’s common to deploy different components separately, edges computing sites typically require single-rack systems that can include compute, analytics, storage, and power and cooling.
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For managed services providers (MSPs), selling full solutions packaged with remote services at the edge is a natural extension of what they already do. For a more traditional IT solution provider focused on hardware or software sales, edge computing opens a path into recurring revenue services.
Remote management is essential to successful edge computing deployments. As edge networks grow into hundreds or thousands of locations, even the largest enterprises are not likely to have technical people to staff them all. Instead, many will look to MSPs to provide remote monitoring and management.

Develop an Edge Computing Strategy
Keeping in mind the remote requirements of an edge deployment, IT solution providers who now focus on hardware should start thinking about how software and services can complement their offerings if they are to seize edge opportunities. Often a percentage of their business consists of selling power and cooling equipment for server rooms, IT closets, and data centers.
If they want to boost that business by targeting the edge, delivering the hardware alone is not a sufficient differentiator. Customers will want complete solutions delivered in a single rack that can be monitored remotely. This opens a big opportunity to launch a Managed Power Services practice.
Managed Power Services handle two primary functions:

• Remote monitoring and management of the physical power infrastructure
• Using data collection and analytics to improve the reliability, availability, and cost-effectiveness of those assets

For an MSP looking to add an offering or a solution provider seeking a path into recurring-revenue services, Managed Power Services is a timely opportunity.
The edge computing market is on a fast growth track. According to IDC, edge spending in 2022 is expected to increase 14.8% over 2021 spending and will pass the $274 billion mark in 2024. “Edge products and services are powering the next wave of digital transformation,” said Dave McCarthy, research director, edge strategies, at IDC.

Managed Power Services Benefits

Managed Power Services enable IT solution providers to:

• Sell packaged software, hardware, and services
• Capture recurring revenue
• Extend service reach beyond their immediate geography
• Solidify the trusted advisor role by adding value, increasing customer retention
• Reduce operational costs with remote troubleshooting and reduced truck rolls

These benefits enable IT solution providers to grow their business and meet an expanding market need.

Ready to Get Started with Managed Power Services?
IT solution providers who want to add Managed Power Services should partner with a vendor that can expedite and support their entry into this market. Schneider Electric, for example, provides a comprehensive path into the Managed Power Services space with a full complement of hardware, software and remote services.
Managed Power Services are a “here and now” solution for providers looking to grab a slice of the fast-growing edge computing market. Discover more by accessing this eguide, “The Essential Guide to Growing your Business with Managed Power Services.”

Power outages have become more frequent and severe in recent years.  Communities in Texas and throughout the southern U.S. are recovering after the largest forced blackout and power grid failure in history.  As an IT professional, you may be well-versed in the ways to prepare and protect IT equipment — uninterruptible power supplies, generators, etc. — in the event of a power outage. (If you need a refresher, this blog post is a good place to start.)

But what about after the power comes back on? What are the questions you need to ask to evaluate your IT infrastructure during the recovery stage?
In this post, I outline four questions you need to ask as you assess your IT equipment after a power outage.

IT equipment recovery checklist   
      
1. Did I plan accordingly?

Even the most advanced facility cannot guarantee 100 percent availability of its IT infrastructure — there’s always a risk of an outage. One of the best ways to ensure a fast and effective response when an outage does happen is to have an emergency plan in place.

No plan?  If you didn’t have a plan in place, it’s time to create one. This paper: “How to Prepare and Respond to Data Center Emergencies, ” is a helpful resource. It includes detailed information on the essential elements to include in your plan, including emergency response procedures, emergency drills, and incident management information. Keep in mind, this document is specific to data centers, but you can apply it to any facility with critical IT infrastructure.

Have a plan?  Great.  Take a look back at your emergency plan and determine if it met your needs. The biggest question to answer is: Did everything work as intended? If everything worked as planned, meaning there was no asset / facility damage or data loss, the right people mobilized quickly, and you wouldn’t do anything differently, then kudos to you.

But due to the nature of power outages, emergency responses aren’t always seamless. If you noticed some areas for improvement, drill down further into the problem by moving onto the next question.

2. Did the system in place work as expected?

Your emergency plan likely includes many elements to keep your IT infrastructure protected during an outage. For example, it may detail what to do during a utility or transformer failure or how to troubleshoot standby generators and uninterruptible power supplies.
Because you’ve determined that there were areas for improvement with your emergency plan, get down to the root of the issues. Common problems that impact IT infrastructure during and after an outage involve circuits, backup power, cooling, and software — so start there.

• Were the right circuits and devices protected?
• Was the uninterruptible power supply runtime adequate?
• Did my backup generators turn on?
• Did my software safely shut down critical systems before the uninterruptible power supply ran out of battery?
• Were all preventative maintenance procedures for the equipment (uninterruptible power supply, generators, etc.) up to date?

A “no” answer to any of these questions warrants a deeper dive into the problem. For example, if the uninterruptible power supply did not run long enough, you may need to work with Brisk Worldwide to replace older batteries or swap your battery cabinet with a larger one to increase runtime.

3. Was there damage? 

Power outages often result from natural disasters. During these events, high winds, water, and fire, along with seemingly minor environmental changes like a temperature fluctuation, can damage IT equipment and cause downtime.

At this stage in the recovery process, identify the location and scope of the damage. And as you or a service provider correct breaks or issues, also remember to address the root cause. Let’s say a server was damaged from a voltage spike.  In that case, you may want to look at enhanced surge protection solutions.

4. What would I do differently next time?

Wrap up your checklist by gauging your overall feeling about the power outage response. If you felt comfortable with your plan and execution, then note that in your plan, detail any lessons learned, and rest assured that you’re ready for the next outage.

But if you note any glaring areas for improvement, it’s time to revisit your power outage strategy. As you put together a revamped plan, consider both clear misses and near misses. And after the new version is complete, perform emergency drills to evaluate and fine-tune the process.

Additional support for IT infrastructure

Power outages are a given. But a swift recovery isn’t. Following the four-step checklist outlined in this blog will help you assess your equipment and plan, and give you direction on how to best prepare for the next outage.

Do you need additional support?  We can help.  Click here to explore more power outage resources.
This NEMA report outlines standards for evaluating, replacing, and / or reconditioning water-damaged electrical equipment.

It was not long ago when there was a pervasive feeling that everything was moving to the Cloud, an unstoppable, inevitable flow of on-premise IT capacity towards huge, highly centralized service provider data centers.  But for many reasons, this hasn’t happened.  One big reason has to do with the growing need for compute capacity at the edge of networks, closer to users, be it humans or other machines.  Why is this needed?  Sending data over a network takes time and costs money…enough so that it is making more sense to deploy compute and storage at the edge rather than having all that data move to and from the cloud or some other remote data center.

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) phenomena itself is a big driver for needing edge computing capacity as more and more connected devices are generating and collecting data. With the cost of sensors and network connectivity being so low, the volume of data collected by local devices has exploded. Combine that with advances made in data analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence, and this data has become very valuable. The increasing value of device data is driving this IoT world where everything is connected and continuously collecting data. It’s now making more financial sense to process, clean, and store, at least, some of this data locally than it would be to send it all to a distant data center. Regardless of sensitivity to latency and cost, the fundamental driver for having compute at the edge of the network really comes down to the desire to benefit from digitization.  Adding compute and network connectivity to every “thing” and to virtually every aspect of our society is dramatically impacting society’s productivity, efficiency, and wellbeing.  Compute everywhere is our future.

Use cases for edge computing deployments has exploded as a result.  The digitization of industrial processes and manufacturing is certainly a key use case.  Brick and mortar retail’s deployment of local IT for providing in-store, immersive digital experiences is another.  Deployment of 5G mobile networks, however, may have the biggest impact on the growth of the edge computing market. 5G offers the promise of sub-millisecond latency, a speed necessary to make many of the world’s tech dreams a reality such as fully autonomous vehicles, robotic surgeries, virtual/augmented reality, and the real-time management of distributed energy sources. 5G will enable a world of incredibly high data speeds for huge numbers of users all while improving reliability and security in an energy efficient manner. 5G’s communication architecture requires the deployment of hundreds of thousands of mini communication clouds and antennae to make all of this come to fruition. So not only will 5G networks help drive the larger edge computing market by enabling edge applications to do even more, the deployment of 5G itself will be a significant edge computing application driving the overall market.

This “compute everywhere” trend has led us to a hybrid computing architecture where more and more organizations’ IT assets and data are spread across large centralized data centers, smaller regional data centers and very small local edge sites.  This highly distributed environment creates challenges for those deploying and managing the IT infrastructure.  And this complexity is exacerbated when you consider that each of the local edge sites require high availability to ensure uninterrupted operations and service. As IoT technologies and edge computing applications become a more integral part of the day-to-day business and/or customer experience, the edge IT infrastructure that houses the associated distributed IT equipment must be robust. The role of IT is no longer viewed as a cost center, rather it is tightly connected to the business strategy and to profit as a value creator, making resiliency even more imperative.

There are two unique attributes of local edge environments, in contrast with regional edge or centralized data centers, that make it challenging to achieve the necessary resiliency: (1) lack of IT and/or facilities staff on-site, and (2) having many sites, geographically dispersed.  These two things create issues such as:

• Complexity in selecting and configuring IT infrastructure components: mistakes can propagate across sites, you must choose parts that not only support the application but that also are compatible with the other parts and with each site’s local conditions
• Logistical/workforce challenges of deploying IT infrastructure to each site
• Operating and maintaining multiple sites from afar: having visibility to all sites and assets, troubleshooting problems without local trained staff, maintaining everything in a standardized efficient way, interpreting alarms and status notifications, knowing who is accessing the equipment, and so on.

Mitigating these challenges starts with partnering with a collaborative ecosystem of vendors, integrators, and service providers. Together using their expertise and tools, they can address configuration, integration, delivery, and operations/maintenance challenges. IT vendors should drive easy interoperability through reference designs, selectors, APIs, and certification programs.  Effective physical infrastructure vendors (racks, UPS, cooling, etc) simplify deployment & operations through easy-to-use configurators, reference designs, resilient infrastructure, and software management tools. Systems integrators will add tremendous value through the complete integration of your IT hardware, software, and physical infrastructure systems ideally before delivery to the site.  And, finally, managed service providers (MSPs) will operate & maintain edge infrastructure for you through management tools and digital services provided either by themselves or by the infrastructure vendor.

Software management is a critical part of the solution to solve edge challenges. The tools are necessary for giving visibility and control from afar. New cloud-based software suites have emerged that offer open APIs and take advantage of cloud, IoT, data analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies. These new tools are what connect members of the ecosystem together to the operations phase of edge IT deployments.  These new capabilities along with the MSPs who employ them essentially augment staffing for the end user by providing remote visibility and proactive control over all edge IT assets.

To paint the picture in very broad strokes, the ecosystem works together to simplify the design and deployment phases while providing both a physical and virtual workforce to ease management and maintenance burdens.  By working together, edge computing owners and operators will be capable of not just surviving in our new complex world of “compute everywhere” but should be well-positioned to thrive in whatever ways they serve their customers. To learn more about mitigating edge challenges through this integrated ecosystem, download our white paper “Integration isn’t just for the micro data center”.

Your UPS is like your car: It requires scheduled and consistent maintenance in order to run at its optimal potential!  Learn more about the UPS LifeCycle and the steps you can take to prolong the life of your UPS in this infographic.  Contact Us today!

It’s clear that lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries stand poised to deliver some dramatic changes to the field of data center uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), mainly due to their longer lifetime along with reduced weight, footprint and cooling requirements compared to lead-acid batteries that are commonly used in UPSs today. In this post, I’ll try to paint a picture of just how dramatic that change might be in small to medium-size data centers (and, in a future post, I’ll discuss potential impacts for facility-scale UPSs).

For starters, valve-regulated lead-acid batteries (VRLA) take up significant space. This is one of the reasons why large, or even medium-size companies, typically don’t place them in the IT “white room.” What’s more, many organizations in recent years have been raising the temperature of their data center server rooms to save on cooling costs, keeping in line with guidance from organizations such as ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers). IT equipment and UPSs can tolerate the higher temperatures just fine. VRLA batteries, on the other hand, will age and die prematurely at those higher temperatures.

For all of these reasons, companies tend to create battery rooms specifically to house their VRLA batteries. Li-ion technology promises to enable a dramatic reduction in the size of these rooms, by a factor of 2 to 3, simply because Li-ion batteries pack so much more energy into a much smaller footprint. This will increase the footprint available for IT space while also reducing cooling requirements, which saves on both capital costs and ongoing operating costs.
What’s more, in some instances Li-ion batteries may obviate the need for separate battery rooms altogether, by enabling batteries to be installed in the IT room along with the UPS. This is especially likely for small- to medium-size data centers. The strategy frees up useful space, simplifies installation and positions the UPS and associated batteries closer to the IT load, which provides better protection from any potential upstream electrical issues.

Similarly, companies that use scalable and adaptable integrated data center architectures such as Schneider Electric InfraStruxure, could benefit further from Li-ion technology. With such architectures, IT racks, power and cooling components are built and tested as part of an integrated data center solution which can then be expanded as necessary over time. Li-ion batteries will make these integrated “pods” even more space- and energy-efficient than they already are, while delivering the same benefits associated with having the UPS/battery combination close to the IT loads they protect, and easily scalable to keep up with data center growth.

In addition to reducing space and energy requirements, Li-ion batteries last twice as long and require less maintenance than their VRLA counterparts. They also come with advanced battery monitoring systems (BMS), giving IT groups easy, remote access to a reliable measure of the “state of health” and “state of charge” for their batteries. And with less maintenance to perform, that means fewer non-IT people need to be in the data center, which addresses a constant concern for IT groups.
I expect we’ll also see great improvement in smaller, single-cabinet UPSs thanks to the combination of higher density power electronics and Li-ion batteries. A cabinet that today supports about 60 kVA with 10 min of energy storage with VRLA batteries, may one day protect 150-200 kVA with that same 10 min. of storage using Li-ion batteries, effectively more than doubling its power density. Such density improvement should substantially change the old knock against UPSs, that they’re “necessary but bulky.”
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With this paradigm shift, it is also not difficult to imagine more power protection integrated right into IT racks, because it will take up far less space and require dramatically less frequent maintenance.
These are just a few of the ways I expect Li-ion batteries will change the 3-phase UPS landscape in data centers in coming years. I’d love to hear your take on the topic, so feel free to let me know using the comments below. And keep an eye out for my next post on what Li-ion technology will mean for large data centers and facility-scale UPSs.