DCNN Winter 2024

Powering the way forward with Schneider Electric

DCNN’s exclusive sit-down interview with Mark Yeeles, Vice President, Secure Power division

Read the full conversation on page 18

WELCOME TO THE WINTER ISSUE OF DCNN!

As 2024 reaches its conclusion and we reflect back on the past 12 months of industry advancements, it’s clear that AI has dominated the headlines and made a splash across almost every aspect of the data centre sector – and it’s certainly received its fair share of column inches throughout DCNN’s coverage too.

In the past few weeks we’ve been inundated with 2025 predictions from industry experts, and while AI is still looking like the biggest talking point for the year ahead, the skills gap, energy consumption concerns and cyber security issues are right up there as the other hot topics at present – and in our special predictions feature on page 58, Cadence provides a full overview of the topics that are most expected to make waves in the weeks and months ahead.

It’s been a busy few months since our last issue went to press. Among the recent highlights were my visits to Capacity Europe 2024 in the shadows of the O2 Arena, where I had the privilege of meeting with Tarun Tyagi of DAMAC to discuss the company’s recent move

CONTACT US

EDITOR: SIMON ROWLEY

T: 01634 673163

E: simon@allthingsmedialtd.com

ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER: NEIL COSHAN

T: 01634 673163

E: neil@allthingsmedialtd.com

SALES DIRECTOR: KELLY BYNE

T: 01634 673163

E: kelly@allthingsmedialtd.com

MANAGNG DIRECTOR: IAN KITCHENER

T: 01634 673163

E: ian@allthingsmedialtd.com

into the data centre sector; a write-up of which can be found on page 24.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with Eric Herzog of Infinidat in Mayfair during his recent tour of London, where we discussed the company’s cyber security advancements and beyond. In his expert commentary on page 29, Eric discusses why it’s time to overhaul enterprise cyber security alerting systems – a fascinating commentary that’s well worth the read.

Finally, I’d also like to take the opportunity to welcome our new Advertisement Manager, Neil Coshan, to the team. Neil joined us at the beginning of December and brings with him a wealth of experience in the data sector – so feel free to drop him a line at neil@allthingsmedialtd.com. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him throughout the year ahead.

Have an excellent start to 2025, and we will be back with our next digital issue in the Spring!

All the best, Simon

STUDIO: MARK WELLER

T: 01634 673163

E: mark@allthingsmedialtd.com

CEO: DAVID KITCHENER

T: 01634 673163

E: david@allthingsmedialtd.com

ACCOUNTS

T: 01634 673163

E: susan@allthingsmedialtd.com

David King looks at how the data centre industry can find a balance between

14 Advertisement Feature

Simon Rowley speaks with Centiel’s Gerardo Lecuona about the company’s beginnings, its ability to develop customer relationships, its UPS technologies, and beyond

18 Cover Story

Simon Rowley speaks with Mark Yeeles of Schneider Electric UK & Ireland about the latest trends impacting the data centre sector

22 Advertisement Feature

When it comes to capacity and density, Western Digital’s latest hard disk drives (HDDs) are setting new standards

24 Interview

Simon Rowley catches up with Tarun Tyagi of DAMAC to discuss the company’s recent moves into the data centre sector under the EDGNEX banner

29 Eric Herzog of Infinidat explains why it’s time to overhaul enterprise cyber security alerting systems, and details what storage administrators should know about their Security Operations Centre

32 Nick Smith, Business Development Manager at Genetec, outlines the value of a unified open architecture security platform

35 Gary Higgins of DeterTech discusses the optimal blueprint for the physical security of data centres and explains the best ways of mitigating security threats during construction

UPS & POWER DISTRIBUTION SPECIAL FEATURES

42 Anna Remelli of Vertiv analyses the ways of unlocking UPS potential in the AI-driven data centre landscape

46 Ciarán Forde of Eaton addresses the data centre power dilemma and explains how to ‘go green’ in the AI age

49 Resistance unbalance is not an especially well-known phenomenon, but it’s a significant issue in Power over Ethernet (PoE) systems. Gerber Mathias of R&M explains further

52 Michael Akinla of Panduit looks at the importance and best practices of integrating UPS and PDUs in data centre management

55 Ajay Kareer of HARTING explores the most reliable and energy efficient connectivity solutions for data centres, and details how to keep the power down while keeping productivity up

38 Show Preview

Next February, join industry leaders at ISE 2025 in Barcelona for the world-renowned annual tech show for the systems integration and audiovisual industry

58 Experts at Cadence, an electronic systems design specialist, offer their data centre predictions for the year ahead – and address whether or not data centres can keep up with the AI demand in 2025

NIS2 STILL A MYSTERY TO CYBER SECURITY BOSSES, RESEARCH SHOWS

Senior cyber security professionals at more than a fifth of the UK’s largest businesses are still “not sure” whether the EU’s NIS2 directive – which is the EU-wide legislation on cyber security – even applies to their organisation, new research by specialist cyber security consultancy, Green Raven, has revealed.

More than two-thirds of respondents at organisations with at least 1,000 employees said that NIS2 does apply to them, but almost 10% of these admitted that their organisation was not compliant as of the 17 October 2024 deadline – with a further 3% not sure.

The findings contradict previous research from June 2024, in which 97% of IT leaders at UK companies declared themselves confident that they would be, or already were, NIS2-compliant.

Morten Mjels, CEO of Green Raven, says, “NIS2 came into force in January 2023 – almost two years ago – so for senior cyber security professionals at the companies most likely to be impacted to not know if it even applies – wow.

“Eventually, failure to be compliant is going to significantly impact the ability of these organisations to do business in Europe, or is going to attract a significant fine for doing business in Europe without being compliant. And saying, ‘We weren’t sure’ is unlikely to be much of a defence.”

Green Raven, greenravenlimited.com

EUROPE’S FIRST GIGA-SCALE AI HOSTING DATA CENTRE UNVEILED

BSO, an infrastructure and connectivity provider, has announced the creation of DataOne, Europe’s first giga-scale AI hosting infrastructure data centre.

Located in France and financed with the support of the Ardian debt fund and leading commercial banks, this ambitious project stems from the acquisition of an existing Tier-3 data centre campus. Currently, the data centre offers 15MW of IT load, spanning 50,000m² across 14 hectares in Grenoble and Lyon.

DataOne’s carrier-neutral campus and AI-agnostic customer infrastructures are interconnected via dedicated dark fibre and 100G+ DWDM wavelengths. This is made possible by a robust ecosystem of seven connectivity providers, with plans to onboard more.

By 2028, DataOne will deliver 400MW of AI-compatible infrastructure, becoming the largest data centre in Europe. The facility will integrate renewable energy sourced from EDF’s hydroelectric power, complemented by nuclear energy backup, ensuring zero carbon operations at scale.

In terms of the deployment timeline, April 2025 will see the launch of 80MW capacity, following 16 weeks of transformation work, establishing Europe’s largest AI-focused data centre. In Q4 2026, there will be an expansion to 200MW capacity, and in late 2028, the site will reach completion with 400MW operational capacity.

BSO, bso.co

POWER SHORTAGES TO RESTRICT 40% OF AI DATA CENTRES

AI and generative AI (GenAI) are driving rapid increases in electricity consumption, with data centre forecasts over the next two years reaching as high as 160% growth, according to Gartner. As a result, Gartner predicts that 40% of existing AI data centres will be operationally constrained by power availability by 2027.

“The explosive growth of new hyperscale data centres to implement GenAI is creating an insatiable demand for power that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough,” says Bob Johnson, VP Analyst at Gartner. “In turn, this threatens to disrupt energy availability and lead to shortages, which will limit the growth of new data centres for GenAI and other uses from 2026.”

Gartner estimates the power required for data centres to run incremental AI-optimised servers will reach 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year in 2027, which is 2.6 times the level in 2023.

“New larger data centres are being planned to handle the huge amounts of data needed to train and implement the rapidly expanding large language models (LLMs) that underpin GenAI applications,” Bob continues. “However, short-term power shortages are likely to continue for years as new power transmission, distribution and generation capacity could take years to come online and won’t alleviate current problems.”

CEOS ADJUST NET ZERO TIMESCALES AND INVESTMENT, REPORT FINDS

New research has revealed that CEOs across key European countries are shifting timescales and investment around net zero goals as companies continue to grapple with balancing profitability and sustainability in a volatile energy market.

The survey of 400 CEOs in charge of companies with turnover above €200m from across the UK,

Germany, France and Italy – commissioned by energy solutions specialist, Aggreko – revealed the majority of respondents (95%) have changed their net zero timescales in light of energy supply and pricing issues. As other pressures face leaders, only 12% of respondents claimed that speed of decarbonisation was their top priority, with most claiming reducing energy costs and delivering commercial advantage were among the top priorities.

The research – presented in Aggreko’s latest report, Rebalancing the Energy Transition – has also revealed that intention to invest in energy transitions is still present, with 80% expecting to increase investment in the next 12 months. However as balancing cost and commercial viability with ESG goals continues to pose a challenge, most investment increase will only be marginal.

With access to finance being a challenge, Aggreko is raising the need for companies to lean on their supply chains to help meet the requirements of the energy transition in the timescales needed – all while balancing profitability with ESG goals. The company has launched this latest report to give leaders insights for navigating the energy transition into the future.

Aggreko, aggreko.com

Gartner, gartner.com

EXA INFRASTRUCTURE LAUNCHES

MANAGED FIBRE NETWORK OFFERING

EXA Infrastructure has announced the launch of a Managed Fibre Network (MFN) service to address market demands for increased connectivity and shorter service delivery times.

This dedicated offering represents a turn-key solution that outsources the design, installation and maintenance of fibre networks for customers that do not possess these capabilities in-house or in-region.

MFN provides the benefits of dark fibre and equipment ownership including the highest levels of scalability at the lowest unit economics, without incurring the associated administration, technical and operational resourcing costs of in-house delivery.

Driven by advancements in AI, cloud computing, content transmission, and big data, networks need to scale to meet growing demands rapidly. EXA Infrastructure’s MFN offering enables companies to fill network gaps, connect data centres and cable landing stations, and rapidly scale into markets quickly and effortlessly. The service is currently available in 29 European countries, plus the US and Canada.

With over 155,000 kilometres of fibre across 37 countries, more than 500 points of presence, and years of experience in network management, EXA Infrastructure is uniquely positioned to deliver tailored interconnection solutions to specific customer demands across Europe, North America, and beyond.

EXA Infrastructure, exainfra.net

SPIRENT INTRODUCES 5G FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS TESTING SERVICES

Spirent Communications, a provider of test and assurance solutions for next-generation devices and networks, has announced its new 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) testing services.

Spirent’s 5G FWA solutions offer comprehensive lab-based 5G/Wi-Fi gateway testing and live network competitive benchmarking to enable communications service providers (CSPs) and device manufacturers to better optimise quality of experience (QoE) and differentiate their offerings in an increasingly competitive market.

Accelerating 5G FWA adoption is seeing demand for rigorous network performance evaluation grow rapidly, with more than 200 CSPs launching home services and 20 CSPs introducing 5G FWA business offerings. Spirent’s new services for 5G FWA address this growing global demand by offering cutting-edge solutions that provide critical insights into user experience and enable operators to drive revenue growth with enhanced customer satisfaction.

“5G FWA represents a growing trend and significant opportunity for CSPs to expand their revenue streams,” says Stephen Douglas, Head of Market Strategy at Spirent. “Expanding its monetisation potential means making testing of the user experience a priority, and that’s what our latest solutions offer. It will also

potentially save service providers, device, and network vendors millions of dollars in troubleshooting costs by enabling them to identify problems earlier in the development cycle.”

Spirent, spirent.com

With unmatched availability, reliability, and efficiency, StratusPower ensures seamless operations and business continuity, minimizing the risk of downtime.

and provides a fault-tolerant architecture. From compact 10 kW modules to robust 62.5 kW options, the UPS meets a range of power requirements with the ability to scale up to an impressive 3.75 MW.

Find out how one small change can be the big solution to your IT challenges. Watch the video.

STRIKING A BALANCE

David King, Senior Principal Product Engineer at Cadence – an expert in electronic systems design - looks at how the data centre industry can find a balance between AI innovation and environmental responsibility.

Organisations are racing to lead in AI innovation. In fact, the UK AI market is worth more than £16.8 billion. This surge has driven a boom in data centre growth to support AI’s immense computational needs. However, this drive to power AI’s potential comes with significant environmental costs.

On a global scale, data centres consume about 3% of the global electric supply and account for about 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions. This impact underscores the urgent need for solutions to ensure that AI progress does not come at the planet’s expense.

MANAGING AI’S MASSIVE DEMANDS

The immense computing requirements of AI rely on high-powered GPU infrastructure, consuming vast amounts of energy to operate and cool these systems. Now, this environmental strain is coming under increasing public scrutiny.

Simultaneously, the same leaders face mounting pressure to undertake sustainability initiatives to meet upcoming regulations while still fulfilling AI’s substantial energy demands. As such, striking a balance between environmental responsibility and AI innovation has become increasingly challenging and complex, given the growing energy demands required to keep pace with AI’s growth.

MAXIMISE RESOURCE USE AND MINIMISE WASTE

AI is poised to drive a 160% increase in data centre power demands by 2030. However, building more facilities to meet AI’s demands introduces environmental challenges, from competing for resources like water to connecting to aging, overstressed electrical grids. Instead of expanding rapidly, facility leaders should question whether they’re fully utilising existing infrastructure. In most cases, they’re not.

Shifting the focus so that facilities do more with what they already have relies on utilising digital twins. These virtual replicas of physical environments play a pivotal role in boosting both efficiency and sustainability across new and existing data centres. By simulating facility conditions without disrupting the current data centre, digital twins enable operators to refine power distribution, spot stranded capacity, improve cooling strategies, and test energy-saving changes. In short, digital twins help maximise resource use and minimise waste.

For data centres, this shift is transformative. Not only does it optimise existing spaces, but it also allows organisations to begin powering AI responsibly, setting a new standard for sustainable growth.

Cadence, cadence.com

THE NEXT GENERATION OF POWER PROTECTION

Simon Rowley, Editor of DCNN, speaks with Gerardo Lecuona, Co-Founder and Global Sales Director, Centiel, about the company’s beginnings, its ability to develop customer relationships, its UPS technologies, and beyond.

SR: Can you tell our readers about the history of Centiel?

GL: I led the research and development and tech division as Technology Director at Newave SA when it was acquired by ABB. However, Co-Founder of Newave, Filippo Marbach and I wanted the freedom to develop the next generation of innovative modular uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technologies, and so we set up Centiel.

Since then, Centiel’s innovation and attention to excellence in design and manufacture meant the company grew rapidly, attracting clients looking for the highest quality power protection solutions to maximise availability

within their facilities. However, we don’t think of Centiel as a UPS provider but as a technology solutions company, working closely with our customers to solve problems through the design and improvement of technology.

SR: Why was Switzerland chosen as the location for Centiel’s factory and HQ?

GL: As you mentioned, Centiel’s factory and headquarters is in Lugano, Switzerland. Since the 1970s, the region has been nicknamed ‘UPS Valley’ because several power protection companies are based here. The area supports a rich ecosystem and pool of expertise and people who are keen to support the most

exciting development projects. This has helped Centiel attract the very best talent and it has a hugely experienced team aligned with the company’s vision and engaged in creating the next generation of innovative UPS technology.

Quality is also embedded into the Swiss culture. This helps Centiel ensure the utmost quality of our processes, components and solutions so it can offer better service and products to its customers around the world.

Switzerland is also conveniently located right in the centre of Europe, which makes it an excellent base for ease of distribution of products across Europe and beyond.

SR: Centiel has grown rapidly into a global player leading the UPS market –how has this been achieved?

GL: Centiel has grown rapidly, as the acceptance of its innovative technology, its benefits and its personalised approach allowed the company to be chosen by many financial institutions, AI data centres, colocations, airports and many other

applications in over 63 countries across five continents for high-quality power protection.

Centiel manages both the commercial and operational sides of the business in the same way, to make it easy for its customers and suppliers and other partners to work with the company. Centiel works as trusted advisors and develops strong, long-term partnerships so it can supply and support customers wherever they are based.

Centiel is a global player, but its strategy ensures it can remain focused and nurture direct contact with its customers. Anyone can pick up the phone and talk to us. This personalised, customer centric approach, combined with Centiel’s award-wining technology and commitment to customer support, has led to client loyalty and the company’s worldwide expansion.

SR: How important is the team of experienced people you have at Centiel?

GL: A key success factor in Centiel’s growth as a leading technology company and manufacturer and supplier of power protection solutions has certainly been its people and the vision and wealth of experience they bring to technological advancement. The individual members of the team originally developed and brought to market the first three-phase transformerless UPS and the first, second, third and fourth generations of true modular, safe-hot-swappable UPS.

The excitement now to develop the next generation of UPS solutions has led to other leading developers knocking on Centiel’s door and joining the company to shape the future of power protection technology. As a result, Centiel has attracted some of the greatest engineering and development talent to its research and development team, all working together to solve the most pressing industry issues and ensuring it is ready for the challenges of the future.

SR: Centiel has a reputation for excellence in rapid project delivery and short lead times. How is this achieved?

GL: Centiel’s flexible and locally based global teams have extensive experience in project delivery. They work hand-in-hand with clients and Centiel’s central team at the factory to ensure solutions are tailored to match individual needs.

The company’s goal is always to ensure that uptime power availability is maximised on behalf of customers and that Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is minimised over the long term. Centiel is normally able to deliver projects with short lead times due to forward planning, careful forecasting and excellent supplier relationships. Supplier loyalty means we can call on them to deliver components at short notice if required.

SR: How will Centiel’s innovative technology development accommodate future market changes?

GL: The data centre market is booming and generative AI will add further pressure to expand. However, organisations are investing in infrastructure and equipment today to manage this future growth and need to ensure all such investment will last for the next 15-25 years, and not become obsolete. Therefore, with its 30-year design life, adaptive load and green sources, Centiel has developed its latest distributed modular UPS, StratusPower, to fulfil this and other needs. In fact, this technology was awarded the Global Technology Innovation Leadership Award.

StratusPower is a highly efficient, scalable, reliable three phase true modular UPS, providing the market leading position in uptime availability of 99.9999999% (9-nines) with outstanding power density of over 1MWm 2 The reliable semiconductor technology also achieves outstanding energy efficiency, reducing carbon footprints. Its design is tailored to support AI data centres, protecting the demanding workloads of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

This includes handling the prolonged and unpredictable GPU usage required for training complex AI models, as well as managing sudden spikes and short bursts of high activity during inference – demands that many current UPS systems cannot support.

Due to its distributed topology, innovative hardware and firmware design and high quality consumable components, elements such as filter capacitors and cooling fans last over 15 years instead of the typical four-to-six year replacement. This means they are replaced just once during their entire 30-year design life. Less component and raw material wastage and transport to site reduces CO 2 emissions too.

UPS cabinets developed and designed with scalability and flexibility in mind enable future load changes to be easily accommodated by adding or removing UPS modules as required. A data centre will never outgrow a well specified StratusPower UPS, and it can be constantly rightsized to ensure it always operates at the optimal point in its efficiency curve. As a consequence of the new design, TCO is also reduced to the minimum.

StratusPower’s technology is also future-ready to accept alternative energy sources. Configured correctly with LiFePO4 batteries known for their cycling ability, it has the potential to become a micro-grid or energy hub, storing and delivering energy into the facility when required. This is important in the face of unstable electrical networks, and as data centres are significant power users,

so the potential to offer a solution to support the grid will be welcomed by energy providers while representing a new income stream for users.

SR: How does Centiel view its role in the future of power protection solutions for data centres, and what message would you like to share with potential customers?

GL: When a customer buys a Centiel UPS they are making a long-term commitment to Centiel as a company, so it is important that they know who Centiel is, where it’s come from and where it is going. The company is passionate about developing technology which will continue to lead the next generation of power protection solutions, and believes that UPS equipment will play a wider role in the future of data centres by helping to stabilise electrical

networks and support the grid while being able to use different sources of renewables - as well as new power sources like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Not only does Centiel’s technology safeguard each critical element within data centres, but it harmonises with renewable and emerging power sources to support a stable grid. Those unable to adapt to changes in the way we need to harness power will become obsolete, finding themselves out of touch in the future.

For organisations currently looking for power protection solutions, Centiel invites conversations to discuss its quality manufacture and design and how its team of trusted advisors can help future-proof data centres for the long-term while maximising availability and reducing TCO.

Centiel, centiel.com

POWERING THE WAY FORWARD

During DCNN’s recent visit to The Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire –which has increased the efficiency and sustainability of its data centre operations – Simon Rowley, Editor, sat down with Mark Yeeles, Vice President, Secure Power division, Schneider Electric UK & Ireland, to discuss his views on the latest trends and stories impacting the data centre sector.

SR: With data centres recently being deemed to be Critical National Infrastructure, what kind of real world changes or impact might this have? And was Schneider advocating for this designation?

MY: I have been advocating for this for quite some time. I’ve seen it as a fourth and essential utility from the minute I stepped into this role.

When I first moved into the Secure Power division I couldn’t believe that data centres didn’t have the profile they deserve. It’s almost

like this hidden thing that everyone’s been afraid to talk about, but we rely upon so much. So, I think there’s a bit of communication and engagement with the general public that needs to be done about the role of the industry and how it supports everything we do.

In terms of the difference the designation is going to make, we’re yet to see the full impact, but it’ll certainly raise the spotlight and profile of the industry. One thing it will provide is access to Government, at depth, to talk about some of the critical things that wrap around the data centre. So it’s important not to hide away from the opportunity to engage.

One thing I believe will become a priority for Government are the opportunities around the different locations here in the UK. It doesn’t always have to be Slough and Heathrow we’re deploying data centres in – we’ve got power capacity across the country. So why don’t we think about building and operating data centres in different areas?

The other thing I think is really interesting is how, in particular for us as a sovereign state on data, is how we interconnect with the Government on cyber security. And I think it will be interesting to see how that plays out over a period of time as well. Because it’s the first Critical National Infrastructure designation for nine years, it’s incredibly positive.

SR: Lots of people are still apprehensive about fully committing to AI, with the SELECT MD recently urging caution about the demand on the National Grid, for instance. How do you respond to those kind of comments that maybe we shouldn’t just go all-in with AI – and are there issues to sort out first, especially in terms of power?

MY: It’s certainly an interesting and relevant topic. From my perspective, I think we are going to see a major uptick in power consumption – this is something that’s happening already in terms of data centres and AI. In time, we will see that begin to tail off as both data centres, chip technologies, and AI models become more efficient.

Another key consideration is how fast the AI wave will arrive, how many of them there will be, and how quickly compute power will ramp up at the same time. None of us can predict the future, but we have to address the energy and data centre capacity issues simultaneously.

For example, how can we source the power for these sites more effectively? And how can we reuse the power that we’re generating more efficiently?

Recently, I was talking to a company that’s launching a microgrid to support data centres.

Microgrids are something that we at Schneider Electric believe can be integral in helping data centres become prosumers rather than consumers, and personally, I’m very keen to explore how we think more broadly than just plumbing in cables from the National Grid. It’s one part of the story only, and I think we need to be mindful of the other ways of sourcing and providing power to digital infrastructure.

SR: I recently spoke with another power specialist within the sector about the impact AI is having on their company, and they were explaining that one of the challenges they’re facing is keeping up with the speed of adoption. Because AI is suddenly a hot topic, customers are seeking instant adoption at a pace that’s almost impossible to keep up with. Is Schneider having to contend with this issue also? If so, what’s the potential solution?

MY: I think that is a very interesting question, and here’s why – with the GPU and chip manufacturers in particular you’re seeing an accelerated rate and pace of change, which is unprecedented and affecting almost every industry.

That adoption curve is, in turn, spurring unprecedented growth rates in other ecosystem players – the companies like

Schneider’s new Critical Power and Cooling Hub in Leeds – a progressive training facility to support innovation and career opportunities

Schneider Electric – that provide the foundational infrastructure to enable transformation and adoption at the application layer. Therefore, many companies are prioritising partnership and collaboration, and seeking out ways to become more agile.

For us at Schneider Electric, collaboration with our ecosystem partners like NVIDIA, our EcoXperts who are data centre design and build specialists, and our electrical channel, for example, is something we’ve long prioritised.

Couple that with a complete portfolio of data centre physical infrastructure solutions and a global supply chain, and you have a recipe for helping customers stay ahead of AI adoption – at least from an infrastructure perspective.

Our partnership with Compass Data Centers is a unique example, where we’ve secured a $3 billion, multi-year agreement to integrate our supply chains and manufacture prefabricated data centre solutions more quickly and with greater predictability. This is a great example

of collaboration, and how we can enable our customers to deploy at pace and scale.

SR: Do you feel there’s a skill shortage within AI?

MY: Yes, and the AI sector is going to need to recruit another 75,000 people over the next four years. Where do you find these people? We’ve got to start looking in new areas outside of the sector, and as an industry, there’s a really big job to do.

In AI, I’m actually pretty excited to see what’s happening in the market, along with the early talent coming through. From what I’ve seen, they’re spurring AI adoption at pace because they have a passion in the areas that are the most important to address. They want to save the planet, they want be working with the most sustainable companies, and they want to make an impact.

Personally, I feel really passionate about young people getting into the industry, and

showing them what’s possible in terms of their jobs and their careers, and how they can have an impact.

SR: You mentioned during your presentation that diversity is also an essential element in this recruitment drive. Could you possibly expand on this notion?

MY: Yes, it’s not just about quantity of people. You need to open doors and extend beyond the reach of traditional industries. Diverse teams make today’s businesses far more successful and effective.

I believe it’s vital to build teams with people from different backgrounds, from different walks of life – and that enables us, as a business, to have different conversations and unique approaches to problem solving. We need people with critical thinking, of course, but we also need creative thinkers to think really outside the box on some of the most

important challenges – energy, sustainability, and efficiency.

SR: There’s been a lot of talk about AI likely causing a little short term pain before the industry can enjoy the long-term gain – but what kind of timescales are we looking at, in your view?

MY: I would say that during the next five years is when we may see that short-term pain, and after that is where I think we’ll see the long-term gain - the incredibly meaningful use cases for AI will materialise, but also all of the efficiency and sustainability gains that we’ve been discussing will become reality.

However, it will be interesting to see what the next phase is, how quickly all of the anticipated AI workloads are deployed, and what additional energy and compute power that’s going to need.

Schneider Electric, se.com

DRIVING HARD DISK DRIVE INNOVATION

When it comes to capacity and density, Western Digital’s latest hard disk drives (HDDs) are setting new standards. Peter Hayles, Product Marketing Manager HDD at Western Digital, explains why.

The increased digitalisation of business operations and the proliferation of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has led to an explosive data growth in recent times. Hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and data centres now require enormous storage capacities to keep up with this data deluge, with factors like performance, power consumption, total cost of ownership and storage density all playing a decisive role in creating an efficient storage infrastructure.

With its decades of industry experience, Western Digital is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible when it comes to data centre storage, and its latest HDDs are here to help address the challenge of balancing capacity and density needs. The Ultrastar DC HC690 UltraSMR HDD has up to 32TB of storage, with a sequential transfer rate of up to 257MiB/s. And the Ultrastar DC HC590 HDD, which uses the traditional CMR recording technology, enables a continuous increase in capacity with 26TB and sustained transfer rates of up to 288MiB/s.

STORAGE CAPACITY AND DENSITY NOW GO HAND IN HAND

What is remarkable about these HDDs is that, despite their higher capacities, they are not physically larger than their predecessor models. This makes them a great solution for data centres and is something primarily made possible by innovative technologies, like the Energy-Assisted Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (ePMR).

The PMR process requires a certain minimum energy to ensure stable magnetisation of the bits. With ePMR, electricity is used to generate an additional magnetic field to support the magnetisation process of data bits. The field creates a preferred path for ‘switching’ the bits, i.e. rewriting the data, and this means that less magnetic energy is required from the write head itself.

The additional magnetic field ensures a more stable and uniformed magnetisation of the bits, which minimises so-called ‘jitter’ effects. This is where unwanted irregularities can lead to inefficient use of storage space. By reducing jitter, the bits can be placed closer together, and therefore the storage density of the hard disk increases.

WHY SMR AND EPMR COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER PERFECTLY

ePMR has a particularly positive effect in combination with Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), the storage recording format with overlapping tracks. With SMR, more data can be written to the same space and, like ePMR, it is therefore great for increasing the storage capacity on a hard drive without increasing its physical space requirements.

SMR hard drives are best suited for long sequential writes where the system is continuously writing data to the medium, such as for data backup or archiving. In combination with ePMR, these two technologies enable an increase in tracks-per-inch (TPI), allowing more storage capacity so data centre operators can

maximise their storage efficiency. This results in benefits such as increased computing power in minimal space, improved energy efficiency, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), scalability and flexibility.

SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HDD TECHNOLOGY

With data centres growing in importance and prominence – especially hyperscalers and cloud providers – there is an increasing need to look for optimised storage solutions that can keep up with the vast amounts of data at scale while lowering TCO to ensure storage efficiency and economic viability.

By combining field-proven designs with the latest innovative technologies, such as UltraSMR and Western Digital’s propriety OptiNAND technology, which leverages integrated iNAND embedded flash for housekeeping functions, data centres will address the different needs of various applications and enable higher capacity storage without having to compromise on density.

Data centres and organisations interested in learning more about Western Digital’s HDD offerings can start their journey here.

Western Digital, westerndigital.com

EXPLORING THE EDGNEX EXPANSION

At Capacity Europe 2024, which took place at the InterContinental Hotel at the O2 in London back in October, Simon Rowley, DCNN Editor, sat down with Tarun Tyagi, Senior Vice President of DAMAC to discuss the company’s recent moves into the data centre sector under the EDGNEX banner.

SR: Hi Tarun! To start with, what can you tell us about the company?

TT: DAMAC was incepted more than 40 years ago in 1982. It’s a company which is based out of United Arab Emirates and is 100% owned by an Emirati businessman, Hussain Sajwani.

Broadly speaking, there are six segments in which the market operates: real estate, data centres, hotels and resorts, capital markets, catering and logistics, and high-end fashion and retail.

These are the segments in which we operate, but historically, what we’ve been known for – from a visible, footprint point of view, especially if you’ve been to Dubai – is the property part. We are among the largest

property developers in the region with a global footprint.

We have delivered around 75 high-rise towers in Dubai, and globally, we have five very large, lateral developments, which comprise several thousand villas and apartments. We also have around 10 hotels globally and 6,000 serviced apartments.

We are present in more than 20 cities, including cities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Qatar, as well as a high-rise tower in London, which is a Versace-branded apartment. We are also developing in Miami, and we have a joint venture partnership in Toronto on a real estate project.

On the data centre side of things, we operate under the brand name EDGNEX, which is 100% owned by DAMAC Group, which started around three years ago. We currently have two operational data centres in Saudi Arabia, and in the last few months, we have also announced our expansion into south-east Asia.

SR: It was recently reported that DAMAC has made an investment in Europe also, with EDGNEX acquiring prime land in Madrid, Spain, for the development of a new, cutting-edge data centre. Why was Madrid chosen as the location for this expansion, and what else can you tell us about this development?

TT: We are actively exploring more opportunities across Spain – not just in Madrid but also in Zaragoza and other carefully selected locations where I’ve personally spent significant time. As the lead for investment strategy and execution for data centres in Europe, this has been a key focus for me.

Outside the FLAPD markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin), several other locations in Europe are emerging as vibrant hubs for data centres. Spain, in particular, stands out due to strong demand from existing and potential customers, coupled with a significant supply-demand mismatch, especially in terms of power availability.

Spain’s commitment to environmental responsibility and green energy further strengthens its appeal. Our Madrid site, for instance, is ideally located – just 5km from an Internet Exchange and 10km from the airport – offering excellent connectivity. In addition, it has secured 40MW of committed power from two independent substations, which is a rare advantage. This ensures reliable power delivery within two years, complemented by robust fibre connectivity essential for data centre operations.

Madrid’s unique combination of strong connectivity, strategic location, and dependable power supply makes it an exceptional choice for us. Moreover, Spain’s government is increasingly focused on expanding its renewable energy capacity, with 60% of its power already coming from renewable sources – a figure likely to grow further.

Considering these factors, Madrid presented the perfect opportunity for our expansion in Spain.

SR: Does DAMAC have plans for entering the UK data centre market also?

TT: London, being part of the FLAPD region, is undoubtedly a key target for us. However, we are also actively exploring opportunities in other parts of the UK.

From a market edge perspective, we manage the entire lifecycle of data centre operations. This includes everything from acquiring land, as we have in Madrid, to designing, developing, and constructing the facilities. Our involvement doesn’t stop there – we also operate and manage the sites while securing customers and tenants.

In essence, we deliver a comprehensive end-to-end solution, covering every stage of the process, from inception to advanced operational excellence.

SR: Is it challenging keeping up with the kind of demands that clients have, specifically in relation to their desire for AI solutions?

TT: We pride ourselves on our ability to design solutions beyond typical cloud requirements, whether for AI applications or enterprise needs. Our expertise allows us to adapt to a wide range of customer demands.

From the outset, we prioritise flexibility in our designs to accommodate varying workload densities and the evolving requirements of our clients. This adaptability ensures that our data centres can seamlessly support changing needs over time.

That said, customer expectations, particularly in AI, are constantly evolving. For instance, advancements in video chips are driving increased power and performance, necessitating continual updates in cooling technologies and other infrastructure solutions. As this is still a relatively new industry for many, such changes bring both challenges and opportunities.

Ultimately, these dynamic conditions push us to innovate, ensuring our data centres remain agile and future-ready to meet the demands of this rapidly growing sector.

SR: There’s still a lot of caution about AI in the UK. Although the industry is embracing it in general, there are still individuals within the sector who think we need to tread carefully or proceed with caution. Where do you stand on this?

TT: That’s an excellent and very important question. With any emerging technology, there’s often a degree of apprehension, and AI is no exception. While concerns like energy consumption are valid, the benefits AI technology offers are undeniable.

Energy consumption is certainly a challenge, but the industry is making significant strides toward developing more environmentally responsible solutions. It’s similar to driving a car – whether electric or petrol-powered, there’s always an associated cost or impact. Every positive advancement inevitably comes with certain trade-offs.

From a data centre perspective, our focus must be on designing facilities that minimise these negative impacts as much as possible. By prioritising efficiency and sustainability, we can address these challenges in a way that aligns with both technological progress and environmental responsibility.

SR: Other than power, connectivity and all the other customer demands relating to data centre sites, sustainability is also of critical importance. How important is this to DAMAC, and what approach does the company take when developing new sites as it relates to this issue?

TT: When evaluating countries and cities for operations, it’s essential to consider their energy profiles, particularly the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources. Many countries in the EU, including the UK, have mandates or are actively working to decarbonise their energy grids. Sustainability efforts must begin with understanding the energy landscape of the regions we operate in, as the power available is a critical factor in environmental sustainability and is largely beyond our control; as it depends on the country’s infrastructure.

Our role lies in designing data centres that align with environmental responsibility and minimise carbon footprints. To achieve this, we have a highly skilled in-house design team that collaborates with top-tier design consultants,

both locally and globally. Together, they focus on creating innovative, sustainable solutions tailored to each project.

Our directive is clear: to design data centres with the highest environmental standards and practices in mind. This commitment is central to everything we do, and our dedicated team works tirelessly to ensure we meet and exceed these goals.

SR: What are some of the other challenges that can arise when seeking to achieve greater levels of sustainability?

TT: The physical and climatic environment of a city or country – whether hot, cold, or with variable temperatures – significantly influences

what can be achieved and directly impacts how we design our data centres.

Land availability also plays a key role. For instance, in the Nordic region, the availability of cleaner and more affordable power is a major advantage, making it an attractive choice for many customers.

Customer needs, however, are equally diverse. Some prioritise latency or non-latency requirements, while others focus on meeting their own environmental goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution; each data centre must be tailored to specific conditions and customer requirements, reflecting the unique demands of both the location and the client.

EDGNEX, edgnex.com

Tarun Tyagi and Brian Betel, Head of Direct Asset Transactions, ActivumSG along with senior executives from DAMAC and ActivumSG

Environmental monitoring experts and the AKCP partner for the UK & Eire.

How hot is your Server Room?

Contact us for a FREE site survey or online demo to learn more about our industry leading environmental monitoring solutions with Ethernet and WiFi connectivity, over 20 sensor options for temperature, humidity, water leakage, airflow, AC and DC power, a 5 year warranty and automated email and SMS text alerts.

projects@serverroomenvironments.co.uk

PUT A SOC IN IT

Eric Herzog, Chief Marketing Officer of Infinidat, explains why it’s time to overhaul enterprise cyber security alerting systems, and provides an overview of what every storage administrator should know about their Security Operations Centre (SOC).

Storage administrators bear a lot of responsibility for their enterprise’s data. Some would argue this is one of the most challenging aspects of the administrator role. As soon as the security team gets any indication that a cyber attack may be occuring, a phone call is immediately made to the storage admin, alerting them to the threat. It’s all part of ongoing, reactive efforts to protect the enterprise’s mission and business-critical data. Precious minutes and seconds tick by, as this manual cyber attack warning system gets underway. The storage admin just has to stop whatever it is they are doing and focus on

the fact that a cyber security incident could be underway.

When this happens, storage administrators need to be ‘firing on all cylinders,’ asking the key questions and ensuring the right outcomes. And in these situations, there is really only one right outcome – that the enterprise data, the lifeblood of all organisations today, is properly safeguarded. But will the storage admins have been quick enough to respond? Will they have succeeded in taking an immutable snapshot of all the data during that split-second window? Can all the data be recovered rapidly in the event of a ransomware attack or another type of malware incident?

Hanging in the balance is their entire enterprise’s data infrastructure security. Can the storage admin guarantee that a known good copy of the data is recoverable?

When one examines the critical stages in this process it’s clear that a great deal of responsibility is resting on the shoulders of storage administrators and their ability to make lightning fast reactions. Is that even possible? What if something else goes wrong? Automation has crept into just about every other aspect of enterprise IT, so why is it that this process and one where the stakes are especially high, is still operating in a silo and dependent on manual intervention?

The reality is that without a fully automated process to capture immutable snapshots of the data before it gets encrypted, corrupted or taken hostage through a ransomware attack, the reaction time is, most likely, simply too slow. Cyber attacks happen so fast, that the loss of even seconds to reaction times can make a significant difference to whether an enterprise can resist, withstand and recover with any certainty. And instead of being heralded as a hero, the storage admin could be slated for poor performance in the aftermath of a security incident. Is that even fair?

HOW COULD THE ENTERPRISE CYBER SECURITY ALERTING PROCESS BE IMPROVED?

One way to ensure a more dynamically cyber resilient storage infrastructure and to improve security of the entire data centre as a whole, would be to seamlessly integrate automated cyber storage capabilities into an enterprises’ SOC. Currently, this lack of integration is the missing link between data storage systems and enterprise cyber security.

In order to reach this point, the role of storage admin needs to gain a greater organisational appreciation. And CTOs, CIOs, and CISOs will need a deeper understanding of SOCs and how, by linking existing security systems with enterprise storage, they can give

their organisations an immense advantage when it comes to recovery from a somewhat inevitable cyber attack.

A SOC has many applications, but is broadly designed to ensure that an enterprise has the most coordinated and effective capabilities for cyber threat detection and response, as well as cyber attack prevention. As most IT professionals know, a SOC is dedicated to monitoring the enterprise’s entire IT infrastructure – and they do it seven days a week 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is supposed to detect and respond to any security-related incident in real-time. IT is continually analysing threat data but are missing a trick when it comes to integrating SOC and storage systems.

Enterprise storage needs to be tightly integrated into a SOC strategy, because the SOC is a control centre and unifies all the cyber security technologies, including the emergence of cyber resilience tech. Rather like the conductor of an orchestra. And now, due to new technological innovation, cyber resilient storage capabilities can help reduce the threat window – if the alerting triggers the right split-second protection mechanisms.

WHAT IF A TRIGGER CAN BE DEFINED FOR CYBER STORAGE TO PROACTIVELY TAKE ACTION BASED ON A SECURITY INCIDENT?

An enterprise’s security team can put all its information from security operations through an enterprise storage intelligence grid to create highly sensitive triggers that may otherwise get missed by existing technologies and techniques. IT solution providers have identified this ability to automate data snapshot commands and data pathways as critical to early detection and worry-free cyber recovery that minimises the effects of even the most vicious and deceptive cyber attacks of malicious actors.

There are three ‘must haves’ to guarantee rapid action:

1. Your enterprise needs automated cyber protection, utilising triggers that security teams define based on security incidents. These may even be barely detectable aberrations that require a deep scanning of the cyber infrastructure.

2. You need an enterprise-wide cyber storage capability that orchestrates the automatic taking of immutable snapshots of data, at the speed of compute, to stay ahead of cyber attacks by creating a cyber realm to cut off the proliferation of data corruption.

3. You need an automated cyber protection solution that seamlessly integrates into SOC environments to add a powerful cyber security capability to an infosec teams’ toolbox in the security infrastructure. It enables more dynamic monitoring that

speeds up response to the start of a cyber issue and enables a ‘handshake’ between monitoring for security incidents (the event) and expressing the fabric of core storage –the data (the outcome).

This integration of cyber resilient storage into SOC needs to be considered mission critical because the stakes are simply too high. It extends our thinking beyond traditional enterprise storage to span the layers of cyber infrastructure that need to be reshaped for today’s emerging cyber attack vectors and more sophisticated AI-driven infiltration designed to inflict harm to enterprises. Today it’s less a question of ‘if’ a cyber attack will take place, and rather a matter of ‘when.’ It’s time for enterprise storage to stop being relegated as a backroom function and it’s time to ‘put a SOC’ into it.

Infinidat, infinidat.com

SCALING UP WHILE LOCKING DOWN

Surging demand for data centre capacity is music to the ears of its providers, but spare a thought for the security and facility teams responsible for ensuring consistent levels of security across multiple sites. Nick Smith, Business Development Manager at Genetec, outlines the value of a unified open architecture security platform in rising to this challenge.

At home and abroad, all the signs point to a bumper few years ahead for the construction, development and growth of data centre facilities. In the UK, we’ve already seen them officially classified as Critical National Infrastructure and explicitly named in the Government’s proposed planning reforms. Meanwhile, in the US we’ve even seen providers investing in nuclear SMRs to prepare to meet the huge power and cooling requirements of AI. We’re seeing significant private equity flowing into the industry in appreciation of data centres’ long-term growth prospects, stable cash flows and increasing strategic importance. This scenario should rightfully be viewed as a cause for considerable celebration. But let’s not pretend such rapid growth won’t also cause challenges in routinely ensuring the secure day-to-day operation of these facilities. Decisions taken now can help to smooth the path ahead. For example, smart investments in technology that can scale and adapt to

accommodate the likelihood of future mergers, acquisitions and expansions.

AVOID THE INHERITANCE ‘TAX’

Industry consolidation and growth inevitably leads to the convergence of existing security departments. Often it means inheriting a range of disconnected security technologies, systems and processes. It’s not uncommon to find legacy sites running separate systems for video, access control, intrusion and more. Multiply this situation across several sites and security teams can quickly find themselves with a dizzying array of tools to keep track of. Though functional, the constant need to switch between different systems proliferates to the point that even the most routine of tasks becomes difficult. Efforts to efficiently operate as one business and to ensure consistent levels of security and compliance across different sites fall apart.

For example, consider the regular audits that need to be conducted to demonstrate compliance with regulatory frameworks such as SOC 2 Type II, NIS2 and ISO27001. Then take a routine question such as, “Who accessed our facilities in the past three months?” It’s easy to answer when it can all be pulled from one database. Yet it becomes significantly more challenging and time consuming if it means manually pulling data from multiple systems, likely in different formats, before they can even be combined.

The dependence on disparate systems creates information silos that cause inefficiency, drive up training and support costs, and make facilities substantially less secure. They also lead to a much degraded customer experience.

Consider a tenant needing to visit the Leeds and Manchester sites of the same data centre provider. They’ll want the two facilities to seem aligned, equally secure and easy to navigate. Yet that can never be achieved on the ground if the two sites have access management systems and protocols that don’t speak to each other. Having to go through two different processes to obtain two different badges is a sure sign of disconnection behind the scenes. So, can these be avoided? Yes, but they rely on decisions being taken at the outset that will allow for security and standard operating processes to be established across all new and existing sites, managed and monitored through one unified interface.

THE IMPORTANCE OF OPEN AND HYBRID ARCHITECTURE

With technology advancing so rapidly, it makes very little sense to be beholden to any one individual vendor’s range of cameras, readers, intrusion panels and other associated hardware. Similarly, it makes no sense to be needlessly forced to deploy all systems entirely on-premises or entirely in the cloud. Instead, it pays dividends to prioritise options that maximise flexibility and allow for the incorporation of a range of supporting hardware.

This would be true at any time, but it is particularly applicable now given the strong likelihood of inheriting or expanding to new facilities. A phased ‘takeover’ of the existing cameras and readers will prove logistically easier and much more cost-effective than a rip out and replace. Furthermore, by incorporating all data and devices back into one core system, it can help to avoid many of the issues referenced above.

The clear global demand for data storage and processing is a sign that providers must plan for growth while keeping up with evolving regulations, security threats and the expectations of customers. With its ability to unify and centralise all of these considerations, the scalability and adaptability of the physical security platform should be considered integral to reaching these goals.

Genetec, genetec.com

THE SECURITY BLUEPRINT

Gary Higgins, Director of Security and Risk at DeterTech, discusses the optimal blueprint for the physical security of data centres and explains the best ways of mitigating security threats during construction.

Data centres are an undisputed success story. Collectively they underpin a digital economy that contributes to over 16% of domestic output, 10% of employment and 24% of total UK exports. Recently recognised as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) by the UK Government, their role in vital public services such as healthcare and finance has never been more important. This new classification brings data centres into a select group of essential industries, including energy, water, and transport, that would receive extra government support in the event of a critical incident. However, with this status comes heightened responsibility, especially given the unique security challenges faced by CNI facilities.

Security discussions in this sector can understandably be focused on cyber, but it’s just as important to consider physical threats and vulnerabilities. As Professor Alan Woodward of Surrey University eloquently puts it, “Many people think of services as being in an ethereal cloud, but everything is based at some point on physical infrastructure, and more often than not this is based in a data centre.”

THE BOOM IN DATA CENTRE CONSTRUCTION

The world’s data needs are growing at an exponential rate. Scientists at Aston University have predicted that in the next three years, the total amount of data in the world will increase by a staggering 300%.

This surge has spurred governments and private investors around the world to focus on data centres as a high-growth investment. Appetite for involvement in the data centre market in the US, UK and mainland Europe in particular, is growing exponentially thanks to the sheer demand for data centre capacity and the prospect of stable long-term returns.

As of June 2024, there were 72 data centre projects in the UK that were expected to start construction within the next 12 months. Some major projects underway include the Kao Data Centre Campus, a £350 million project in Stockport, Greater Manchester, as well as the construction of four data centres in Saunderton, Buckinghamshire, that will provide 75MW of IT capacity. This boom presents lucrative opportunities but has also caught the attention of organised criminal gangs. Sites must be adequately secured throughout the construction phase to avoid the prospect of costly thefts, disruption and delays to project timelines.

REAL WORLD THREATS

Once operational, the physical security of data centre facilities tends to be very robust, as regulatory frameworks ensure this is well thought through during the design phase. However, the wider perimeter of the site can still remain vulnerable to unwanted intruders. There are also significant risks during the construction and refurbishment phase, when permanent security solutions may be offline or less effective.

Data centres under construction are particularly vulnerable when materials, hardware and machinery are being delivered and stored on site.

Cable theft in particular is a huge issue, and the organised criminal gangs behind it are indiscriminate in who they’ll target. Over 750km of cable has already been stolen from UK solar farms this year, and these sites are often targeted repeatedly, even after the cables are replaced. Data centres under construction are almost certainly in their crosshairs. Especially

those with plans to incorporate their own solar farms and battery storage facilities as a means of reducing their electricity bills.

As such, it is imperative for data centre operators to implement stringent physical security measures, especially during the construction and refurbishment phases. This ensures high value materials such as cabling is protected and does not fall into the hands of criminals.

MITIGATING SECURITY RISKS DURING CONSTRUCTION

To address this concern, Gary outlines essential steps that operators can adopt as part of a multi-layered strategy to safeguard data centre sites during the most vulnerable times:

1. Understand the risk

To mitigate the risk of cable theft, it is important to understand how threats to your site will manifest themselves. Report all incidents to the police so that they can build up a more comprehensive picture of the movement and activities of criminal gangs. Stay abreast of thefts from other data centres under construction and make adjustments to your own security strategy based on their experience.

2. Reinforce perimeter security

Any perimeter fence can be accessed by angle grinding a gap in the fence, so high value materials such as copper cables should be stored out of site from the perimeter. Storage containers have also been targeted numerous times by offenders for the valuable assets contained within. Consider using lockable shipping containers or secure cages for the temporary storage of expensive materials on-site.

3. Maintain a clean and organised site

Avoid leaving valuable materials or equipment in plain view, as clutter can attract unwanted attention.

4. Adapt and upgrade security measures

Having familiarised themselves with the security measures in place, criminals are highly likely to revisit a site they have successfully targeted. Victims of theft should quickly make visible changes to security infrastructure to change the environment and discourage return visits.

5. Leverage advanced detection and monitoring

Use visually verified intruder detection systems for real-time responses to security breaches. Unlike unmonitored CCTV, these systems can actively deter thefts and initiate a rapid response while offenders are still on site.

6. Deploy forensic marking

Tools like SmartWater, a traceable liquid and forensic asset marking system, offer an effective way to mark valuable items. With a 100% conviction rate in contested cases, this technology not only aids recovery, but also serves as a strong deterrent.

7. Lighting and visibility

Ensure that all areas, especially entry points and perimeters, are well-lit at night. Criminals are less likely to target sites that are brightly lit and easily visible.

The unprecedented demand, increasing strategic importance and long-term growth prospects all make data centres a very attractive business investment. Yet the very real physical threats they face should not be overlooked in an environment in which discussion of cyber security dominates. Adopting the right physical security measures, particularly throughout periods of construction and refurbishment, is a valuable insurance that will protect the long-term returns.

DeterTech, detertech.com

ISE 2025: THE MUST-ATTEND EVENT FOR THE PRO-AV INDUSTRY

Next February, join industry leaders at ISE 2025 in Barcelona for the world-renowned annual tech show for the systems integration and audiovisual industry.

ISE, the world-renowned annual tech show for the systems integration and audiovisual industry, is returning to Fira de Barcelona Gran Via from 4-7 February 2025 and is inviting visitors to open their eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of tomorrow.

The upcoming event offers inspiration and advancements for the pro-AV community, with opportunities to learn and discover from leading market brands. Registration is open for this unmissable event, providing ground-breaking technologies, fresh ideas, and invaluable opportunities for professionals to restore connections across the audiovisual world.

SHOW FLOOR INITIATIVES

ISE 2025 features seven dedicated Technology Zones set across eight halls, showcasing the world’s leading technology and solution suppliers, making it easier for attendees to find and compare the solutions they are looking for, and saving them time. Leading brands like Microsoft, Crestron, Samsung, and Barco will showcase cutting-edge AV solutions, providing valuable insights into how integrated systems can enhance our everyday lives and the future. Mike Blackman, Managing Director of Integrated Systems Events, explains, “ISE 2025 will be our most ambitious, inspiring and motivating edition to date. We’re looking forward to a host of new initiatives and features, an expanded and more easily

accessible content programme that digs deep into the most significant megatrends shaping our industry, as well as the unveiling of Hall 8.1 accessed via the conveniently located North Access point. ISE is the global destination to get your connection restored with the industry – through virtually impossible experiences, unrivalled networking opportunities, and state-of-the-art technology, as well as even more chances for career and personal development.”

OPENING KEYNOTE

Attendees will be inspired by the Opening Keynote presented by AI Futurist, Brian Solis, who will explore the potential of AI in the pro AV and systems integration industry. Brian’s keynote address is set to be an essential destination for attendees eager to discover why now is the time for business leaders to rethink their organisations for an AI-defined future.

CONNECTION RESTORED

Across the show floor at ISE 2025, visitors will discover an eye-popping array of technologies. There will also be the opportunity to explore how this technology is applied in real-life projects throughout the city, with ISE’s impressive collection of Tech Tours as well as the continued sponsorship of the annual LLUM BCN Festival of Light and an iconic mapping on the façade of Casa Batlló.

ISE brings the global AV and systems integration community together with unparalleled networking opportunities to connect with peers, industry leaders, and potential partners. From dedicated networking events to informal meetups, ISE is the place to make those invaluable connections that drive your business forward.

EXPANDED CONTENT PROGRAMME

There are several special events at ISE 2025 that require advance booking. The content programme, curated by AVIXA, CEDIA and ISE, offers a multitude of opportunities. These include the six Summits, the European Latin American AV Forum, and CEDIA Workshops.

This year, ISE has shaken up the content programme to give greater focus to the mega trends making an impact in the industry: Retail, AI, Audio, Cyber Security, and Sustainability. These dedicated Track sessions complement the Summit programme and will take place from Tuesday through to Thursday. The entire programme provides a platform for pro-AV experts to stay ahead of industry trends and network with key players in the field.

The new ‘Day Pass’ provides visitors with access to all Summits and Track sessions taking place that day – it’s a flexible option that allows you to tailor what you’d like to see and when.

One session not to miss is ‘Top Ten Cybersecurity Checks’ taking place on 5 February from 12-12.30pm in room CC5.1. This session will focus on the warning signs or checks that can be made to ensure that major touchpoints – a company’s equipment, staff, data and other assets, and its clients – are protected.

CYBER SECURITY / HACKATHON

Hacking has rapidly evolved into a major industry, with ransomware attacks and large-scale data breaches becoming increasingly common. During the week, panel discussions will emphasise the importance of this growing megatrend and explore solutions tailored to the professional AV ecosystem.

In line with an enhanced focus on innovation, startups, and entrepreneurship, ISE 2025 will host its first-ever Hackathon. Over two intensive days at Fira de Barcelona, teams of students will collaborate to tackle three real-world challenges in sustainability, innovation, and cyber security. They will work alongside professionals from education and other industries, fostering a unique environment for learning and problem-solving.

NEW FOR ISE 2025

Nestled in the heart of Congress Square, Innovation Park is set to be an essential destination for industry leaders and forward-thinking startups alike. This vibrant initiative offers a unique opportunity for emerging businesses to present ground-breaking ideas and forge meaningful connections with key players in the industry.

Featuring a dedicated Pitching Stage, curated by the renowned venture capital experts at Plug & Play, Innovation Park will host dynamic pitch sessions across all four days of the show. It will be an indispensable chance to engage with the future of innovation and explore collaboration opportunities that can shape the industry landscape.

REGISTER NOW

ISE 2025 is far more than just a tech show – it’s a platform for collaboration and progress. Whether you’re looking to establish new partnerships, explore investment opportunities, or exchange ideas, ISE 2025 provides the ideal environment to connect.

By attending, you’ll be at the forefront of innovation, gaining access to tools, knowledge, and contacts that will drive your business and personal growth.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of this transformative experience. Register now and join ISE 2025 as it transforms Barcelona into a hub of innovation and inspiration.

Readers of DCNN can register for free using the code: dcnewsmag.

ISE, iseurope.org

•

•

UNLEASHING THE POTENTIAL OF UPS

Anna Remelli, Marketing Communications Manager for Large Power at Vertiv, analyses the ways of unlocking UPS potential in the AI-driven data centre landscape.

As data centres grow in both size and complexity, driven largely by the acceleration of AI workloads, power distribution and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems have emerged as even more important critical infrastructure elements.

UPS systems, once seen as just power backup during outages, are now strategic assets in power distribution, capable of dynamically responding to demand fluctuations and supporting energy efficiency goals and AI workloads. This evolution is reshaping the power management strategies of data centres.

FROM REACTIVE BACKUP TO ACTIVE POWER MANAGEMENT

Traditionally, UPS systems were built as stop gaps, designed to keep operations running during short-term disruptions until normal power was resumed. But today, with the demand for continuous, high-density computing, these systems play a proactive role in power management. We’re seeing a shift from isolated power units to smart, interconnected systems that can manage load balancing and power optimisation.

Data centres are increasingly exploring UPS as a way to complement broader

power distribution strategies. In high-density environments, UPS systems help bridge the gap between supply and demand, providing ‘intelligent’ support for AI and other power intensive applications. The integration of these systems with software and AI allows for real-time load adjustments, helping data centres avoid peak costs and prevent unexpected downtime.

INTEGRATING UPS WITH AI FOR DYNAMIC LOAD MANAGEMENT

AI is redefining how UPS systems manage and respond to loads. With the ability to predict power needs based on workload patterns, AI-driven UPS solutions can help facilities dynamically distribute power where and when it’s needed. This advancement is particularly valuable in data centres running complex applications like AI training and analytics, where power demands are unpredictable and vary significantly by hour, or even by minute. For instance, AI-powered UPS can respond instantly to changes in power usage, analysing fluctuations in real-time to redirect resources as necessary. This level of agility not only improves efficiency but also supports sustainability efforts by reducing waste and optimising energy use. This adaptability provides a new level of resilience, particularly for facilities managing a diverse portfolio of applications with different energy demands.

THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY PARADOX

One of the most significant challenges is balancing the need for energy efficiency with the requirements of high-powered AI applications. As companies race to reduce their carbon footprints (and keep up with regulatory imperatives), they face the dilemma of how to implement more sustainable practices while maintaining the

infrastructure necessary to support AI-driven workloads.

New-generation UPS systems are increasingly focused on efficiency, using advanced cooling techniques and modular architectures to reduce energy consumption. Some facilities have started to experiment with UPS that can interact with renewable energy sources, drawing from solar or wind power when available. However, the challenge lies in making these integrations seamless; renewable energy is notoriously variable, and incorporating it into UPS systems without risking downtime requires careful consideration and lots of planning.

OPPORTUNITIES IN MODULAR UPS FOR SCALABILITY

Modularity has become a buzzword across the industry, especially with AI-driven data centres requiring both flexibility and scalability. Modular UPS solutions, which allow facilities to add or remove power capacity as needed, are ideal for managing growth. These modular systems help companies sidestep the often prohibitive costs of infrastructure upgrades by allowing them to scale power supply in line with demand.

For many facilities, modular UPS not only aligns with expansion needs but also presents a valuable opportunity to test new power management features or configurations. For instance, a modular UPS can allow for trial runs of new AI load management software, helping data centres adapt and prepare for increased power demands without investing heavily upfront.

ADDRESSING SECURITY AND RELIABILITY ISSUES

AI-driven power distribution, despite its efficiencies, introduces unique security risks. Cyber threats targeting critical infrastructure are on the rise, and the increasing connectivity of UPS systems opens up new vulnerabilities. Protecting these systems requires a multi-layered approach, involving everything from firewalls to advanced intrusion detection systems.

Reliability also remains a concern. While AI-managed UPS systems offer flexibility, they are complex and require skilled oversight. Downtime risks cause issues, especially in edge cases where AI fails to accurately predict and balance power demands. Investing in regular maintenance and upgrading legacy systems is essential to prevent such disruptions.

NAVIGATING THE TRANSITION

For many data centres, transitioning to AI-enabled UPS and power distribution will mean that a shift in both mindset and infrastructure is needed. The journey won’t be without its challenges; from the cost of upgrading to the need to train staff in new

protocols. Nonetheless, the payoff in terms of efficiency performance and maximising resource use is hard to ignore.

Data centres adopting AI-driven UPS solutions are finding that they can better manage power consumption, improve their resilience, and adapt more fluidly to changing demands. Looking forward, the shift towards more intelligent, flexible power management systems appears to be both an operational imperative and a competitive advantage.

UPS and power distribution are no longer simply about backup power; they’re evolving into strategic tools that support growth, sustainability, and operational flexibility. As the technology behind UPS systems continues to advance, data centres that invest in AI-driven solutions stand to gain a significant advantage, enabling both robust and efficient infrastructure and the ability to support increasingly complex digital workloads. The next few years will be telling as these systems mature, and as data centres around the world rise to meet the demands of a digitally powered future.

Vertiv, vertiv.com

THE DATA CENTRE POWER DILEMMA

Ciarán Forde, Vice President, Strategic Accounts and Alliances, Electrical Sector

Sales EMEA, Eaton, addresses the data centre power dilemma and explains how to ‘go green’ in the AI age

As the world races towards digitalisation, data centres have become foundational to the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-intensive technologies. This has resulted in rising demand for data centre infrastructure that can manage the surging energy demands of such technology.

The International Energy Agency projects that the global electricity demand of data centres will more than double by 2026, from 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) to up to 1,000TWh. This increase is driven largely by advanced AI systems, which require significantly more energy than traditional data processing tasks. For instance, a single AI query consumes

about 2.9 watt-hours (Wh) – which is 10 times more energy than a standard Google search.

However, the challenges facing data centre operators do not stop at meeting burgeoning energy demands. Sustainability is also a critical concern, as seen through new environmental reporting mandates. The European Commission, for instance, is due to implement a scheme requiring data centres to rate their energy performance and sustainability.

These dual priorities leave data centre operations with a power dilemma: in a world where fossil-fuelled energy predominates, how can data centres meet surging digital demands without compromising sustainability?

RENEWABLE ENERGY INTEGRATION

Much of the answer lies in the availability and expansion of clean energy generation on the grid to support the design and build of data centres. Data centres are not the root cause of energy supply tightness, but a reflection of the broader need for increased investment in the energy system and development of renewable energy sources.

While some regions have made impressive strides in adopting clean energy, all are hampered by approval delays and grid congestion created by the fast growth of renewables. Even the new binding target set by the European Union’s revised Energy Directive of ensuring that at least 42.5% of energy comes from renewable sources falls short of addressing the rapidly growing energy demands of the digital age.

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE

The data centre industry is conscious of the need for renewable energy and has long been the largest corporate investor in green power through power purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy. These agreements not only ensure a steady supply of clean energy for data centres, but

also provide the funding needed to make large-scale renewable projects, like wind or solar farms, financially viable. Without this support, many of these projects would not be able to get off the ground.

However, despite the industry’s continued focus on improving efficiency and investment in PPAs, issues remain. Firstly, the rapid demand growth for new technologies continues. Secondly, there is a mismatch between the generation and consumption of clean energy, highlighting the need to get renewable energy to where it’s actually needed.

DATA CENTRES AS GRID SUPPORTERS

Due to that mismatch, an increase in demand for data centres’ outputs means their power consumption threatens to exceed the grid’s ability to supply or manage sufficient sustainable power. But, while they are the source of the challenge, they can also play a central role in boosting that stability. Doing so requires changing the perception of data centres as solely major consumers of energy, and instead seeing them as ‘prosumers’. This means calling on data centres to produce energy too, and manage their energy usage more effectively.

Through innovative approaches and technologies, achieving this title is becoming simpler for those in the industry. For instance, demand response technology – such as Eaton’s EnergyAware – builds on existing Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems, to enable it to act as an energy resource.

In other words, data centres with grid-interactive UPS technology will be able to act as energy reserves during peak demand, supporting the grid at critical times and integrating renewable resources, aligning operational demands with sustainability goals. At the same time, the UPS retains its primary function as a backup power source for the data centre, prioritising system continuity.

ADDRESSING THE DATA CENTRE POWER DILEMMA

The stakes are high. Failure to address the data centre power dilemma effectively could have far-reaching consequences, not just for the data centre industry but for the European economy which is highly dependent on digitalisation.

The application of dynamic power solutions, such as grid-interactive UPS technologies, is a clear step towards addressing the power dilemma. By enabling data centres to be both active consumers and producers of renewable energy, the industry can reduce strain on the grid, promote power digitalisation and advance Europe’s sustainability goals.

However, while dynamic power solutions have an important part to play in the energy transition, they need to form part of a wider strategy. One which encourages the increased integration of renewable energy, and the delivery of a supporting infrastructure. Responsibility for this strategy falls on both government and industry taking a collaborative approach to delivering progress.

Ultimately, the data centre industry has repeatedly committed itself to a zero-carbon future and is ready to cooperate with regulators, grid operators, energy technology providers, new energy investors and local authorities to support a sustainable and digital future.

Eaton, eaton.com

COMPLIANT CABLING SOLUTIONS FOR PoE

Resistance unbalance is not an especially well-known phenomenon, but it’s a significant issue in Power over Ethernet (PoE) systems due to its impact on the overall performance, efficiency, and reliability of the network. Gerber Mathias of R&M explains further, and takes a closer look at power categories and the importance of resistance unbalance.

When planning a generic cabling installation, it’s crucial to consider Remote Power Categories, since standards make it mandatory to support Power over Ethernet (PoE). Remote Power Categories, defined by EN 50174-2 (Europe) and ISO/IEC 14763-2 (global), provide essential guidelines for PoE design and requirements. During planning and installation, the selected remote power category needs to be considered and you need to ensure selected cabling products meet the requirements. What’s more, ensuring Remote Power Category compliance can prevent significant issues down the line.

CATEGORY COMPLIANCE

Remote Power Categories RP1, RP2, and RP3 pertain to the power delivery capabilities of network cabling, particularly for PoE. Choosing the correct category involves evaluating several factors, including the (total) power requirements of your PoE devices, network environment, and cabling infrastructure needs. Although the standards were introduced in 2020, there is still limited market awareness about RP category compliance, and the specifications are often overlooked.

However, the rise of smart buildings, smart cities, and related IoT equipment is driving demand for PoE, and with the rapid increase in equipment requiring 4PPOE, non-compliance can impact operational reliability and can lead to contract reassessment. The most recent type, 4PPoE, can supply up to 90W per port (with a minimum of 71W at the powered device), making it essential to ensure cable bundles do not overheat. Determining the right remote power category is key to this.

THE REMOTE POWER CATEGORIES

The number of devices that can be connected is key to determining the RP category.

• RP1 is for basic PoE installations, in which high-power devices or low power devices only occasionally require power. Each time a PoE device is connected, compliance with the maximum permissible current must be checked.

• RP2 for mid-range PoE installations is suitable for a moderate number of high-power devices, such as security cameras or wireless access points. Here, too, compliance with the maximum permissible current must be checked each time a PoE device is connected.

• RP3 is the recommended choice in EN 50173 and the mandatory selection for ISO/IEC 11801 installations. It supports

high-power PoE applications on every cable installed. Planning prior to installation ensures that the temperature increase will remain at an acceptable level, even in worst-case scenarios.

With RP3, cabling is already configured during the planning phase so that all cables can transfer the maximum PoE current at the same time. This makes the system very safe. R&M expects RP3 category-compliant solutions will soon be specified in all contracts for newly built systems, even in an EN50173 environment. For ISO/IEC compliance, RP3 is already mandatory.

In a generic cabling installation, every cable in a bundle needs to be capable of fully supporting PoE at the highest level. To future-proof the installation, every cable in that bundle must be able to carry the highest burden simultaneously. Power transmitted through the cables will generate heat and increase the temperature of the bundle. Higher-temperature cables exhibit higher attenuation, which can eventually impact data transmission. The challenge for the planner is to ensure that the attenuation budget for data transmission can always be adhered to with RP3 cabling and that the permissible temperature in the cable is not exceeded. This can be achieved, for example, by adjusting the link lengths or reducing the bundle size. The shorter the cable link and the lower the temperature, the lower the resistance and attenuation losses during data transmission.

THE IMPACT OF RESISTANCE UNBALANCE

Resistance unbalance refers to the difference in electrical resistance between the conductors in a cable. It measures the degree to which the resistance in one wire of a pair deviates from the resistance in the other wire of the same pair. The relationship between resistance unbalance in cabling and the power categories RP1, RP2, and RP3 is crucial.

DC Resistance Unbalance (DCRU) in a cable pair may be caused by substandard cable and connector manufacturing, poor installation practices at the point of termination, or unreliable termination technology that degrades over time. In the worst case, unbalanced pairs can introduce signal transmission failure due to induced insertion loss in transceivers. The signal transformers of active equipment can easily be saturated by the DC current and fail to receive data sent along lines if the currents are mismatched on that same pair. In installations where data connections appeared functional but were in fact sub-standard, adding PoE can lead to data loss which highlights significant connection issues. With the increasing prevalence of PoE, supported by systems convergence and ‘all over IP’ developments, field testing with resistance unbalance included is more crucial than ever. Resistance unbalance testing ensures PoE support without data transmission issues or excess heat - which is vital for warranty agreements and avoiding costly rework.

ISSUE DETECTION

R&M regularly receives requests to come and inspect customers’ installations because there are connection issues with PoE devices. The customer may have managed to ‘fix’ the issue by wiggling the cable for some time, but that’s not exactly a permanent solution. When the company looks for the root cause of the issue, it often discovers the use of sub-standard patch cords which introduce high levels of resistance unbalance at the ends of a connection which is otherwise perfectly fine. Simply swapping out the patch cords for good ones fixes the problem.

Historically, the advice was to test a permanent link and then attach standards-compliant patch cords. However, this can present problems for PoE, if cords and their connectors introduce resistance unbalance errors that are not tested as part of the complete channel. R&M strongly

recommends testing the complete channel in any system, with the patch cords in place or the use of patch cords that are specifically optimised for resistance unbalance performance.

Resistance unbalance testing verifies the deviation in resistance between each core in a twisted pair. While the generic cabling standards define maximum resistance unbalance figures, they currently specify this testing as optional. Given its critical nature for remote powering, future standards should make this testing mandatory.

Resistance unbalance testing ensures installations support PoE without introducing data transmission issues or excess heat, making it vital to warranty agreements and avoiding costly equipment replacement and rework. Planning and installing with RP3 compliance in mind and using suitable products ensures your cabling system can meet the ever-increasing PoE requirements of today and tomorrow.

R&M, rdm.com

BUILDING THE BACKBONE

Michael Akinla, Business Manager Central Europe North at Panduit EMEA, looks at the importance and best practices of integrating UPS and PDUs in data centre management.

In today’s digital-driven world, data centres are the lifeblood of modern businesses, underpinning everything from financial transactions, cloud services and TikTok videos. As demand for reliable and efficient data centre infrastructure surges, so does the need for a resilient and seamless power management system. Integrating Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) with intelligent Power Distribution Units (PDUs) offers a robust onsite solution, equipping data centres with crucial power and smart management capabilities to ensure continuous operations.

ENSURING CONTINUOUS POWER WITH SEAMLESS TRANSITION

The most critical function of integrating UPS with PDUs is ensuring continuous power to data centre equipment, even during unexpected power interruptions. UPS solutions provide short-term backup power in the event of an electrical failure, providing valuable time for generators to kick in or for controlled shutdown procedures to be initiated.

The precise transition from utility power to UPS can mean the difference between data security and loss. This switchover, often occurring within milliseconds, is crucial because even slight delays can lead to system crashes, data loss, and costly downtime.

Together with intelligent PDUs, data centres gain wider capabilities of real-time power distribution that adapt to load changes and alert engineers of potential issues. By distributing power seamlessly across racks and monitoring the load, intelligent PDUs ensure power availability is optimised for critical IT equipment, safeguarding essential operations.

ENHANCED MONITORING AND ENERGY OPTIMISATION

Modern PDUs come with sophisticated monitoring capabilities, allowing managers to oversee power consumption, temperature, and other environmental conditions from a central interface. When paired with UPS systems, this monitoring becomes even more powerful, providing data centres with an integrated view of power health across the facility. Intelligent PDUs provide insight into power usage patterns and help prevent overloads whilst enhancing energy efficiency by identifying areas of waste.

Advanced UPS systems, especially those equipped with lithium-ion batteries, also offer longer life cycles, compact footprints, and reduced cooling requirements. They can be easily integrated with data centre monitoring systems to deliver granular data on battery health, temperature, and charge status. This integration enables proactive maintenance, reduces the risk of unexpected failures, and increases the lifespan of the power infrastructure.

Data centres’ operations are under constant pressure to optimise energy usage. Integrating UPS and PDU systems contributes to overall energy efficiency, allowing facilities to dynamically manage power based on real-time needs. Intelligent PDUs can adjust load distribution to reduce energy waste,

while UPS systems maintain a stable power supply, thereby minimising disruptions and reducing power inefficiencies. Additionally, many modern UPS operate with a unity power factor of 1, meaning they can use energy more efficiently and provide a cleaner power output than less efficient previous versions.

Intelligent PDUs are now more widely available and offer per-outlet monitoring, which helps data centres pinpoint exact power consumption by device, allowing for precise load balancing and ensuring that equipment is neither underutilised nor overloaded. This feature is vital for data centres aiming to meet sustainability targets, as it allows operators to better allocate resources while maintaining peak performance.

SCALABILITY, FLEXIBILITY AND RESILIENCE

As data centres grow in complexity, scalability becomes essential. Integrated UPS and PDU systems offer modularity that supports incremental scaling. For instance, modular UPS can be expanded in alignment with increasing demand without the need for a complete infrastructure overhaul. Likewise, intelligent PDUs are designed to support flexible configurations, adapting to a variety of rack designs and compute densities.

This scalability is especially beneficial for colocation and hyperscale data centres, where power demands can vary significantly. A unified UPS and PDU solution can be configured to support specific needs based on the data centre’s size and mission-criticality, whether it’s providing extended backup power to financial services requiring 10-15 minutes of runtime or supporting hyperscale facilities that need only a few minutes of UPS protection.

Data centre reliability hinges on uninterrupted power, particularly as outages and energy disruptions continue to pose risks globally. By integrating UPS and PDUs, data centres can improve their overall resilience to these challenges. Intelligent PDU paired with robust UPS solutions can prevent cascading

failures by isolating issues at the rack level and redistributing power as needed. Moreover, PDUs equipped with daisy-chain capabilities and redundant network access (RNA) offer added resilience by ensuring that power management continues uninterrupted, even if one unit in the chain fails. In addition, UPS systems with high-efficiency batteries, such as lithium-ion, ensure prolonged backup with less maintenance and minimal footprint. These advancements in power infrastructure can make a crucial difference in preventing downtime, maintaining high service availability, and mitigating financial losses due to outages.

FUTURE-READY COST MANAGEMENT AND ROI

These combined solutions provide a compelling financial advantage. Better understanding of power distribution can help prevent over-provisioning of UPS systems, thus avoiding unnecessary capital expenditure and ongoing operational costs. For example, modular UPS designs allow data centres to add capacity only when needed, reducing both initial setup costs and the long-term financial burden of underutilised infrastructure.

Additionally, the data collected from intelligent PDUs on power usage, efficiency, and environmental conditions can inform better resource allocation and energy conservation strategies. By reducing energy waste, data centres not only cut down on operational costs but also enhance their sustainability requirements, an increasingly crucial factor in both corporate and regulatory contexts.

One of the most transformative benefits of modern UPS and PDU integration is their compatibility with cloud-based management systems. For example, integration of power back up and distribution with cloud-based DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Management) allows managers anywhere to monitor, control, and receive alerts across their entire power chain and maintain positive environmental conditions. Cloud-based monitoring offers operators and customers

real-time visibility into power consumption, temperature, and system health, enabling faster response times and better decision-making.

Through DCIM integration, UPS and PDU data can be analysed to optimise load distribution, plan capacity, and implement preventive maintenance. This level of insight is invaluable in data centres aiming to meet operational goals while preparing for future demands. For instance, intelligent alarms and thresholds can be set within cloud solutions to immediately alert operators to potential issues, enabling quick action to maintain optimum uptime.

The integration of UPS and PDUs forms a resilient backbone for today’s data centres, empowering them to meet the dual demands of reliability and efficiency. By ensuring seamless power transition, real-time monitoring, optimised energy use, and scalability, this integration enhances operational resilience and future-proofs data centre infrastructure.

As data centres continue to evolve to meet growing digital demands, investing in a robust, integrated power management solution is not just beneficial, it’s essential. Through intelligent UPS and PDU solutions, data centres can achieve greater uptime, streamline operations, and lay the groundwork for a sustainable, flexible, and efficient future.

Panduit, panduit.com

Smart Connectivity solutions are designed to improve safety and quickly identify faults

THE BALANCE OF POWER

Ajay Kareer, Data Centre Market Manager at HARTING, explores the most reliable and energy efficient connectivity solutions for data centres, and details how to keep the power down while keeping productivity up.

The worldwide data centre market is experiencing explosive year-on-year growth as our reliance on remote working, AI and the Internet of Things increases at a staggering rate. In addition, the changes to our working lives have meant that businesses and individuals need reliable access to data to allow them to embrace flexible ways of working. Therefore, as we become more reliant on remote or hybrid working models, it’s essential that data centres run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Data centre power outages can happen for various reasons such as weather conditions, network failures, human error and software issues. However, they can also occur due

to power infrastructure problems created inside the data centre from either generator, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) or Power Distribution Unit (PDU) failures.

The International Data Corporation reports that energy consumption per server is growing by around 9% per year globally. Despite servers getting more compact to save installation space, their improved performance increases their energy requirement. As a result, energy consumption costs can be more than 50% of the total data centre operating expenses (OPEX). It’s therefore essential to invest in and manage each part of the critical infrastructure in the data centre to ensure energy efficiency and reliability.

Cable assemblies distribute power from the data centre’s UPS to the PDUs. These assemblies consist of a cable between one or two connector hoods. Inside the connector is an insert or multiple inserts where the conductors from the cable are terminated. The connector hoods then mate with a matching housing wired to the PDU and/or UPS.

When a cable assembly is designed and manufactured using automation, human error is massively reduced. If the same connections are handmade or field wired, the chance of error increases, potentially risking catastrophic issues either during the initial power up or during the operation of the data centre. This in turn can result in hours of expensive skilled labour spent troubleshooting, as well as the downtime costs of the rack, PDU or entire data hall not functioning.

If designers hard-wire the conductors inside the cable, a skilled electrician is needed to disconnect and reconnect the hard-wired PDU. Using cable assemblies means there is no need to hire an electrician and, since everything is pre-wired and pre-tested, wiring errors are virtually eliminated.

IMPROVING THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY

As energy costs can account for more than 50% of the total operating expenses of a data centre, one important ongoing challenge is to improve the energy efficiency of its infrastructure. To calculate the exact effect of power usage from connectors in data centres, HARTING has compared the power consumption of three different connector solutions in its independently accredited test laboratory. One of the connectors tested was the HARTING Han-Eco. The other two were CEE (IEC 60309) plugs from different manufacturers.

The results showed that the Han-Eco connector reduced power wastage by up to 50%, compared to the other two brands of IEC connectors, by using low-impedance contacts. These contacts reduce the power lost in connections and significantly improve the Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) of data centres. Depending on the electricity price, which differs regionally and worldwide, different monetary gains can be realised. As an example, one hyperscale data centre with 15,000 racks can achieve annual power

The Han-Eco connector reduces power wastage by up to 50% by using low-impedance contacts

consumption savings of around £90,000. These calculations are based on the average EU industrial prices from 2020, so potential savings will be even more dramatic when we consider how much energy prices have increased over the past four years.

The Open Compute Project (OCP) is focused on the redesign of hardware technologies for IT infrastructure. The goal of the working group is to make data centres more efficient, more flexible and more quickly scalable, via an open exchange of ideas, specifications and other intellectual property to maximise innovation and reduce the complexity of technical components.

In a data centre, power shelves provide power to IT equipment. The Rack & Power

Project Group within the OCP initiative is focused on standardising racks and making them easier to integrate into the data centre infrastructure. These designs, called the Open Rack, began worldwide installation at the beginning of 2023.

As a lead author and initial connector partner in the standardisation process, HARTING has now developed the third version of the Open Rack (ORV3), called the ORV3 OCP Input Power Connector. In line with the OCP’s goal of optimising efficiency in the construction and scaling of data centres, the Han ORV3 enables a more compact design for the entire infrastructure, thanks to its shallower rack system.

Connectivity technology is constantly being refined and developed, and new Smart Connectivity solutions are designed to improve safety, identify faults, and ensure systems within data centres are working efficiently.

One of the most important additional functions powered by Smart Connectivity is the signalling of the mating state. The mating state can indicate a range of different parameters, including if the connector is electrically connected and whether it is mechanically locked. It can also indicate if the connector is overloaded and monitor whether environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity are within the permitted range.

Connectors are currently identified by using electrical contacts as coding pins, with the control system determining which attachment is plugged in. However, this method has its limits, especially with large flexible systems.

The latest solution identifies the connector with the help of a bus system and microcontroller or alternatively via NFC (Near Field Communication). This gives each connector a unique ID which is assigned to the corresponding attachment or tool. As a result, even simple components such as lamps, door contacts or analogue sensors can be identified.

HARTING, harting.com

Han ORV3

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

Experts at Cadence, an electronic systems design specialist, offer their data centre predictions for the year ahead – and address whether or not data centres can keep up with the AI demand in 2025. Here’s a full round-up of their forecasts for the coming 12 months.

BALANCING AI GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY

MARK FENTON, PRODUCT ENGINEERING DIRECTOR

In 2025, data centres will face mounting pressure to reconcile AI’s surging energy requirements with strict sustainability goals, sparking an industry-wide rethink on AI applications. The infrastructure required to deliver on AI is poised to drive a 160% increase in data centre power demand. This challenge is creating a pivotal moment for data centres to support high-density compute loads while advancing their environmental commitments. Companies will face a new crossroads. Many that initially rushed into AI, driven by competitive urgency, will now re-evaluate its financial and

energy impact, with some in-house setups costing up to $300,000 in hardware alone. This shift is likely to push organisations toward selective, high-value AI applications that provide stronger operational returns, including within data centres themselves.

However, demand will still remain at a high level, stretching capacity to its limits. As such, tools like digital twins will be essential for data centres to meet AI goals sustainably, allowing operators to proactively manage power, integrate renewable sources, and optimise cooling measures to meet AI’s GPU usage demands. With these advancements, data centres can help organisations make AI investments both impactful and environmentally responsible.

DATA CENTRES’ AI ERA REVAMP

DAVID KING, SENIOR PRINCIPAL PRODUCT ENGINEER

Data centres will face a pivotal moment next year as energy usage, especially to power AI, continues to rise. Facilities will start to realise that there really isn’t enough energy. While newly built, AI-optimised facilities can be better suited to handle these requirements, retrofitting older data centres to support increased power, as well as cooling, is required to meet demands. However, it is costly and complex. This pressure is prompting operators to plan both infrastructure upgrades and invest in purpose-built facilities designed to power AI.

Amid these changes, digital twins will be crucial for enhancing data centre efficiency and sustainability in both new and existing data centres. By simulating physical facility environments, digital twins allow operators to optimise power distribution, improve cooling techniques, and test energy changes, helping to maximise resource use and reduce stranded capacity. This technology not only makes the most out of existing space, it also supports sustainable growth, setting a new standard for energy-efficient, AI-capable data centres.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY DIRECTIVE WILL PROMPT DATA CENTRE ACCOUNTABILITY

MARK FENTON, PRODUCT ENGINEERING DIRECTOR

The EU Energy Efficiency Directive’s new reporting requirements, starting in May 2025, will mark a significant step in measuring energy and water usage within the data centre industry on a wide scale. By establishing initial data points, the directive will enable an ongoing comparison of industry performance, potentially paving the way for new regulations or targets that promote greater energy efficiency. The results will likely reveal a diverse landscape, where some companies, particularly within tech, show measurable progress, while others lag behind, exposing varying levels of commitment to environmental goals.

What’s more, with public interest in data centres’ resource use on the rise, these findings could invite heightened scrutiny, especially if data points to excessive energy consumption or local grid strain. This may lead to ‘naming and shaming’ by the media, heightening societal pushback even further.

However, the EU’s transparency-driven approach and heightened scrutiny should encourage data centres to adopt greener

practices and utilise tools like digital twins, both to meet compliance standards and mitigate public backlash. Ideally, this will set a new benchmark for sustainability and accountability across the sector.

GEN Z’S PURPOSEFUL MINDSET WILL HELP CLOSE SKILLS GAP

DAVID KING, SENIOR PRINCIPAL PRODUCT ENGINEER

From 2025 onwards, the data centre industry will see a substantial generational shift as seasoned professionals retire and younger, tech-savvy talent bring in specialised skills in AI, automation and sustainability.

Traditionally focused on physical infrastructure, data centre roles are evolving to require advanced technical skills like proficiency with simulation software such as digital twins. These tools are crucial in modern data centres for optimising energy use, airflow, and resource allocation, marking a proactive shift toward efficiency and sustainability.

Gen Z’s entry into the workforce also brings a strong focus on purpose-driven careers,

where sustainability is a core value. This generation’s commitment will likely drive more talent to the data centre industry as they hope to help promote greener practices, such as implementing advanced cooling methods, reducing inefficient resource utilisation and bringing down stranded capacity.

As these professionals assume leadership roles, data centres are set to become more agile, eco-friendly and resilient. This evolution will not only close the current skills gap but redefine the industry’s approach to sustainable innovation, positioning it for a future led by Gen Z’s commitment to impactful, environmentally conscious operations.

SPACE CRUNCH AND COST PUSH DATA CENTRES BACK IN-HOUSE

AITOR ZABALEGUI, SENIOR PRINCIPAL APPLICATION ENGINEER

Next year, data centres will continue to be challenged with intensified space constraints and rising operational costs, driven largely

by surging AI workloads. For example, in Dallas-Ft. Worth, there is a record 372.2MW of data centre space under construction, with 91.8% pre-leased. This forces all organisations, including cloud giants, to compete for limited real estate, pushing up costs. As a result, many organisations will reassess the benefits of moving certain operations back in-house and making use of pre-existing infrastructure. By doing so, these companies aim to mitigate the financial strain associated with using cloud providers or competing with large companies for colocation space.

Despite the in-house appeal, AI-led business demands may quickly outpace the limitations of organisations’ existing infrastructure, putting the need for new data centre builds back in focus. However, the significant time and complexity required for new builds – from permitting to power utility negotiations – will sustain a continued need for cloud resources in the short term.

The squeeze is on. In any case, both cloud providers and in-house data centres may increasingly turn to digital twin technology as

a vital tool to maximise the current resources they have. This approach will be critical if the industry is to adapt to the rising demand created by technological innovation, including AI.

THE RISE OF AI AGENTS IN DATA CENTRES

MARK FENTON, PRODUCT ENGINEERING DIRECTOR

AI agents are poised to secure their position in workplaces industry-wide in 2025, and data centres are no exception. Software providers in this sector will increasingly explore the integration of powerful large language models (LLMs), such as those based on ChatGPT, into data centre tools. While this offers transformative potential, it also introduces significant challenges due to the resource-intensive nature of LLMs.

Through Cadence’s own testing of advanced LLMs, it’s become clear that even relatively modest setups require substantial infrastructure for training and operations, with each model functioning as a ‘personal assistant’ for operators. In order for an AI assistant to be well informed, they need significant training to understand the questions asked and provide the correct answers. As such, for assistants to be quick in providing those answers, businesses will need low latency and high-speed compute running the show.

Organisations will need to weigh the ROI of AI agents carefully. For example, at Cadence, integrating LLMs could enable digital twins to become personal assistants that provide on-the-spot insights for automating cooling and optimising energy efficiency. This synergy between AI and digital twins has the potential to redefine data centre operations, creating cost and energy efficiencies at a time of heightened environmental scrutiny. Ultimately, implementing LLMs across any platform will require strategic planning to ensure that their financial and environmental benefits outweigh the energy costs required to support them.

Cadence, cadence.com

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAGAZINE AND NEWSLETTER TODAY

Subscribe free today to receive your digital issue of Data Centre & Network News, along with our weekly newsletters featuring the latest breaking news along with exclusive offers from industry leaders.

SCAN ME TO SUBCRIBE

CENTIEL’S STRATUSPOWER OFFERS

As data centres become increasingly important in today’s society, maintaining uptime has never been more critical. Data centres also face the challenge of improving efficiency and reducing environmental impact.

In response, Centiel has developed StratusPower, a highly efficient, scalable, reliable three phase true modular uninterruptible power supply (UPS), providing peace of mind for power availability and uptime for critical power protection. The solution improves energy efficiency and reduces carbon footprints.

The multi-award winning UPS is durable due to its topology and innovative hardware and firmware design, meaning components are not stressed and last longer. Instead of replacing consumables such as filter capacitors and cooling fans every four to six years, replacements are needed every 15 years, or just once during their entire 30-year design life. This is important as a data centre has a design life of typically 25 to 30 years.

With proven 9-nines availability, StratusPower effectively eliminates system downtime. Class leading 97.6% online efficiency minimises running costs and true ‘hot swap’ modules eliminate human error and allowing modules to be tested fully while connected to the grid in the hot frame and

IMPROVED ENERGY EFFICIENCY

disconnected physically from the load, increasing safety during upgrades.

Scalable and flexible UPS cabinets enable future load changes to be easily accommodated by adding or removing UPS modules as required. A data centre will never outgrow a well specified StratusPower UPS, and it can be constantly rightsized to ensure it always operates at the optimal point in its efficiency curve.

StratusPower is offered in a power range from 50 to 1,500kW in one cabinet, and can be paralleled for 3,750kW critical power protection.

Developed and supported by Centiel’s hugely experienced team who act as trusted advisors, StratusPower is now a significant move towards helping data centres become more sustainable helping to minimise total cost of ownership and achieve sustainability goals with a full commitment to zero waste and net zero policies.

With its innovative topology, advanced energy management features, and unmatched scalability, StratusPower is the ultimate UPS system for data centre operators looking to optimise their power infrastructure.

Centiel, centiel.com/uk

STULZ INTRODUCES CYBERAIR MINI DX AIR CONDITIONING UNIT

STULZ, a mission critical air conditioning specialist, has announced the introduction of its CyberAir Mini DX range of space saving innovations for small and medium sized heat loads. Available from January 2025, the CyberAir Mini DX complements the highly successful CyberAir Mini CW range, and together, they will replace the company’s MiniSpace series.

With the CyberAir Mini DX, STULTZ aims to build on the success of its CyberAir Mini CW, which was introduced in 2021 and is available in four sizes with cooling capacities between 8.9kW and 34.7kW. Built using state-of-the-art components, the CyberAir Mini DX is a compact and efficient precision direct expansion air conditioning system that delivers effective climate control in server rooms and telecommunication closets.

It is ideal for businesses seeking to safeguard sensitive IT infrastructure through precise temperature control, while at the same time minimising operating costs. The CyberAir Mini DX is available in three sizes, with outputs from 5.9kW to 22.7kW – and to offer the most appropriate option for the widest variety of applications, each device can be configured with a choice of five different cooling systems. These include two air-cooled direct evaporation systems (A/AS), a water-cooled direct evaporation system (G), a chilled water system with redundant air cooling (ACW) and a hybrid free cooling system (GE).

STULZ, stulz.com

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC ANNOUNCES GALAXY VXL UPS

Schneider Electric has announced the launch of its new Galaxy VXL – a highly efficient, compact, modular, scalable, and redundant 500-1250kW (400V) three-phase uninterruptible power supply (UPS), complete with enhanced cyber security, software, and safety features.

At just 1.2m² with a power density of up to 1042kW/m², Galaxy VXL UPS sets a new benchmark in efficient, sustainable, and advanced UPS technologies. Available immediately in all 400V IEC regions worldwide, Galaxy VXL delivers high levels of power performance for AI, colocation, and hyperscale data centre environments, as well as large-scale critical infrastructure and electrical systems within commercial buildings and industrial facilities.

With its compact design, high-density power provision, and AI-load tolerant design, Galaxy VXL maximises uptime and availability for the most energy-intensive infrastructure systems – being capable of powering up to 1.25MW in one frame, and up to 5MW with four units running in parallel, while increasing both operational and energy efficiencies to help minimise customers’ total cost of ownership (TCO). Through its patented operating technologies, Galaxy VXL delivers up to 99% in its high-efficiency eConversion mode, and up to 97.5% efficiency in double

conversion mode, providing Class-1 power protection alongside leading levels of energy reduction, while lowering the UPSs’ carbon emissions by a factor of two.

Schneider Electric, se.com

ZELLA DC UNVEILS OUTDOOR MICRO DATA CENTRE

Zella DC, a provider of edge-ready and containerised micro data centres, has introduced the Zella Outback, a new outdoor micro data centre.

With enhanced design and functionality, the Zella Outback is equipped to meet the escalating demands of edge computing environments and, as one of the most advanced outdoor micro data centres on the market, it brings features that ensure optimal performance in even the harshest conditions.

The name ‘Outback’ reflects Zella DC’s steadfast commitment to both innovation and reliability. The company’s roots are deeply entrenched in the rugged landscapes of Western Australia, where it was born over a decade ago. Zella’s mission has always been to revolutionise micro data centre technology, creating solutions that withstand the harshest elements,

including scorching heat, relentless dust, and unstable power conditions. The Zella Outback reflects this commitment, delivering an edge solution that thrives in any environment, from remote locations to urban settings.

Available in three sizes, the micro data centres feature improved insulation, upgraded access control, easier maintenance, customisable appearance, and advanced security.

TRANSCEIVERS TO EMPOWER AI APPLICATIONS WITHIN NETWORKS

Data centre operators can now achieve the unparalleled speeds needed for the most demanding AI applications, thanks to a new range of 400G and 800G transceivers launched by ProLabs. The new transceivers and cables will empower operators to make crucial network enhancements, the company states.

“We are committed to providing optical solutions that come at a fraction of the cost of Network Equipment Manufacturers (NEMs),” says Ray Hagen, ProLabs Vice President, Product Line Management, Transceiver Products. “These transceivers represent over a

decade’s worth of work in developing AI-enhancing solutions for the optical market. This makes ProLabs the trusted and proven source for companies looking to utilise the latest AI tools and developments.”

Generative AI is revolutionising network infrastructure, driving resource-intensive workloads and extensive amounts of power to process data in real time.

As a result, optical transceivers have become crucial in delivering the high-speed, high-bandwidth connectivity required to support AI systems. The use of third-party, compatible transceivers from ProLabs means operators can use solutions that are typically 70% cheaper than those offered by the leading NEMs.

The launch includes the 800G OSFP 2xSR4 and 800G OSFP 2xDR4, the first major third-party 800G optics designed to meet the needs of AI-enhanced networks. Alongside the 800G solutions, SC24 will see the introduction of the 400G QSFP112 SR4 and 400G QSFP112 DR4 transceivers, which provide operators with high performance modules for short-length applications. Also available will be ProLabs’ innovative 400G OSFP-RHS SR4 and DR4 transceivers, as well as TAA solutions.

ProLabs, prolabs.com

Make greater

Make greater with an industry-leading network

with an industr y-leading network

40 years of uninterrupted protection, connectivity, and reliability.

40 years of uninterrupted protection, connec tivit y, and reliability.

Tap into four decades of unparalleled UPS reliability, strengthening infrastructures, as well as sophisticated software and services that will help future-proof your business in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

ap into four decades of unparalleled UPS reliability, strengthening infrastructures, as well as sophisticated software and ser vices that will help future -proof your business in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

40 co Ta rel we th ev

Be an Impact Maker