Environmental Principles Drive Solution Deployment
Established in 1976 and credited with being the first comprehensive national university in the UAE, the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) holds a reputation for innovation and ingenuity. So when plans for a new campus in Al Ain were announced, it was clear that no expense would be spared in delivering a sustainable and state-of-the-art facility.
Schneider Electric's scope of work encompassed IT integration design, build and delivery of a green data center infrastructure for the new campus. Specific solutions included the implementation of an Infrastruxure embedded solution comprising Schneider Electric Racks/Enclosures, In-Row RP Cooling units, Schneider Electric In-Row RD Cooling units and Schneider Electric N+1 UPS units.
Olivier Delepine, Vice-President, Gulf Countries, IT Business, Schneider Electric, said: "We are privileged to be an integral partner of the data center solution at the UAEU. Combining our expertise and longstanding experience with cutting-edge technology, we successfully proposed and delivered a green data center to the university."
UAEU's Green ICT Vision mandated the ICT deployment mission to follow the environmental and sustainable philosophy of 3R's - reduce, re-use, and recycle. The UAEU saved its entire real-estate carbon footprint of creating a separate dedicated university data center. Retro-fitting the Faculty of IT (FIT) building to reuse existing space and provide cooling, in addition to installing an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) system and back-up generator, facilitated this achievement.
Muhammed Imran, Acting Director ICT, UAEU said: "As our services and applications become more centralized and more converged, the demand on our data center will begin to grow as we'll require more robust equipment. Schneider Electric's Infrastruxure provides a modular approach to data center deployment. Not only does the new data center provide more capacity, but it also has room for more equipment cabinets to meet growth needs. When the time comes, the UPS can be upgraded with additional power and battery modules, and the cooling with additional units. In the meantime, UAEU is able to conserve its capital budget as well as gain OP-EX benefits from having the IT load requirement and infrastructure supply closely matched to one another."
The FIT building also hosts 20 advanced ICT laboratories including an 8.3 T-Flop super grid computer, and the UAEU Net-Pop room providing WAN, LAN, Internet and Ankabut (Internet 2) connectivity. The newly established Schneider Electric data center provides the backbone for the next generation unified intelligent network - one of the largest academic networks in the region with more than 350 wiring closets connected to over 25,000 IP ports that offer a link to the UAEU data center via redundant fiber.
Commenting on the benefit of working with a client from the very earliest stage of the design process, Sameer Nagrash, Enterprise Accounts Manager, IT Business, Schneider Electric said: "The design of the data center solution was orchestrated by the UAEU's design team, however in our capacity as a trusted advisor, we worked to ensure that the key solution and technology was selected. Within our capacity as project managers we coordinated with all involved parties to ensure deadlines were adhered to."
Imran added: "The Schneider Electric data center delivered what we needed, both for immediate and future requirements. The UAEU's planned focus on using green ICT as the key driver of its educational emphasis is paying off with the new green ICT campus."
"The rapid adoption of new business technologies and the influx of increasingly challenging amounts of data have made intelligent IT operations critical to any size business - not just large corporations. We're excited to provide truly comprehensive solutions such as the one developed for UAEU which is an integrated, simplified solution that consolidates vendors, reduces man-hours and enables remote device and environmental management," concluded Delepine.
Following the implementation of the data center, Schneider Electric was also recognised with the 'Green Award for Sustainability' for the UAE University data center project.
© Press Release 2012
