Schneider Electric’s purpose is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. The company drives digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, end-point to cloud connecting products, controls, software and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries. Schneider Electric’s Senior Vice President of EcoStruxure Solutions, Secure Power Division shares about their partnership with Digital Realty. His team is responsible for consulting with Cloud Service Providers, Commercial/Government end users and agencies for their data center physical infrastructure needs. Brown is responsible for the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IT infrastructure management software business, which provides customers insight into the resiliency and availability of their infrastructure. He also serves as head of the Energy Management Research Center, which researches market trends and creates content that helps customers make smart and pragmatic business and technology decisions.
What was the strategy behind the partnership with Digital Realty and Schneider Electric?
We have some big challenges in our industry that are forcing a change in how our ecosystem functions. To support its colocation and expansion goals, Digital Realty has been proactive in taking the lead in the industry and engaging with Schneider Electric to leverage our expertise and solutions. For example, Schneider Electric helped customize an EcoStruxure solution to unify, monitor, and control their facilities, from anywhere in the world, at any time. Our innovative EcoStruxure platform provides the reliability, scale, and visibility that was demanded. We also installed what we call EcoStruxure Pod Data Centers, our integrated rack systems, which provided the flexibility Digital Realty requires to fit customers’ varied configurations with reduced installation times and faster deployment.
Digital Realty’s VP of Supply Chain and Procurement, Brent Shinall shared, “In order for us to achieve global consistency, we need a partner that can provide software, products and services consistently, on a global level. Schneider Electric is definitely a partner providing innovative and value-adding solutions for our infrastructure needs.”
What are the priorities for Schneider Electric regarding sustainability? In your opinion, what role will a partner like Digital Realty play in meeting those goals?
When it comes to sustainability, I believe the industry needs to do a much better job on metrics. For example, while PUE is not perfect, it drove activity and changed the dynamic within the industry. In the last decade, our models show that on the whole we have reduced energy waste by around 80 percent, and PUE has played a pivotal role in driving this improvement. But we’re now reaching the limit of what is possible on the facility side in terms of efficiency. Data centers have been focused on electrical efficiency, and it’s important, but it’s only one part of sustainability and we need the metrics to help drive the activity.
How do we get clear benchmarks when it comes to sustainability?
Some people believe the EPA’s three Scopes for Green House Gas emissions are pointing us in the right direction, and Schneider Electric is offering new sustainability services. We are in a good position to do that based on our experience in sustainability, which has been a company focus for the past 15 years. We were just named the most sustainable company on the Global 100 index. It is our mission to be our customers’ partner for sustainability, providing energy efficient hardware and leading the digital transformation to more sustainable and efficient data centers.
