'India's starting to adopt energy management'

In the current scenario of the world facing several energy challenges, David Blumanis, vice-president, Regional Data Centre Solutions - Asia Pacific & Japan, APC by Schneider Electric, shares his views, ways to deal with and mitigate the issue, with Chokkapan S of CyberMedia News

CMN: Could you explain about the contemporary energy challenges, especially in the IT systems and infrastructure domain?

DB: Redundancy in power networks is a major energy challenge and utilities can't keep up to the demand owing to growth and development. It is constraining some organizations. There are also escalating costs, even as governments are getting more and more strict on CO2 emissions.

In India, the focus is on large energy consumers, like data centres, but there is a catch-22 situation because of the need for more energy, while trying to reduce the consumption. Land prices are shooting up, especially when you look at expanding your centre for large operations. So, there is no room for additional generators and coolers, when the capacity is within/inside the building.

Automation is adopted in the country, where, according to a recent study, there is 16 per cent power deficit. The cost of electricity will double in the next five years. Next, energy dilemma is coming and very quickly, it is going to hit homes, offices and elsewhere.

Even a mere push of a button on a BlackBerry consumes a lot of power, as the action involves a lot of data centres. Almost 50 per cent of power consumption in a data centre is because of cooling. However, just with a $20 sensor to turn off lights, you can possibly save $700.

CMN: As far as energy challenges are concerned, what is the present scenario in the Indian IT services sector and data centres?

DB: Over the past couple of years, there is a dramatic change and energy is being a focus area now. It was not the case even two years ago. There are a lot of legacy data centres in India, which are very inefficient. Unfortunately, only some organizations have been early adopters, while the rest are constrained in the energy efficiency environment. There, however, is awareness and customers here do employ efficient power solutions.

Now, high-density technical adoption is on in the country and my personal view is energy will be a key focus in the next two years. While carbon footprint is being looked into in mature markets, there is not much happening in India. For instance, Australia is coming up with a stringent mechanism for hundreds of companies to have carbon reduction programmes.

In Asia, Singapore is following similar programmes and Japan is extremely focused, even more after its tragedy (the recent earthquake and tsunami). U.S. penalizes non-conformation to energy-efficiency standards.

CMN: What are the current trends in data centre architecture? Does APC go by those or have its own protocols?

DB: Most of the players have been designing data centres the same way over the last 60 years. Only now, the high-density environment brings in new ways to build data centres. With cloud computing being the trend of the future, there is the pressure of data centre capabilities. Now, the focus on logical and physical security in banking, finance and other sectors is increasing.

APC is the first to build modular, scalable data centres and high-density cooling systems. We invest a lot on our research and development (R&D). Vendors are copying us and we are happy about that. We still build traditional data centres, even as we are into innovative ones. We try to change the way the world makes data centres and have been doing it differently for years now.

CMN: What has APC got to offer the IT services sector and data centres in energy management in India?

DB: In India, adoption is starting to happen now and a lot of people have virtualization projects. The cheapest data centre might not necessarily be an efficient one. Due to operational costs, it is easier to buy a data centre server than to maintain it.

We have a programme - India for India - which looks specifically into the challenges and situations of Indian customers. As much there are unique challenges here, the market is aware, big and growing. We are focused on R&D, as India is a large manufacturing hub for us. There are specifically-designed solutions that are cost-effective for the market.

We are building intelligence at firmware level and are bringing together and integrating all racks, such as facilities and IT, in a building. We look to give visibility to virtualization software. Our central design is in Mumbai and our project execution centre in the country is made up of all business units.

CMN: What is your EcoStruxure concept all about? In what ways does it mitigate energy crises and deal with challenges?

DB: It is a building management solution and can be applied for any individual building. Through the concept, we do capacity planning and simulate 'what if' scenarios. It has software that cuts across at the granular level and has everything broken down to segments, such as facilities and building structure.

In the next 15-20 years, there will be technology refresh. After the Internet age, now it is the digital age. We expect the next to be the energy age. We want to make sure that we reduce the carbon footprint and savings of even up to 60 per cent on electricity bills. Moreover, some of the hosting facilities consume a lot of energy compared to any other building in a city.

The dynamics are changing in the emerging markets, like India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Korea and China. The focus from the CIO and the CFO on these issues is increasing. We offer full turnkey solutions, as over the last 7-8 years, the realization on high-density technology is rising.

Energy has to be managed on an ongoing basis through the whole life cycle by capacity planning. We want to give visibility to smart grid at homes. In EcoStruxure, we offer virtualized environments to assure a certain amount of energy efficiency. It is a mix of products and systems in a network. We achieve good results through intelligent sensors in right places. We can assess a facility and make sure it is modular and scalable. We have prediction management tools. It is about IT racks across the floor, right-sizing the entire environment and capacity planning.