Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, today released three independent research studies to better understand the maturity of sustainability initiatives within IT and data centre organizations, and more specifically, where the IT and data centre industry stand in achieving this vision of net-zero IT operations. The results of the studies, conducted by leading industry analysts, were previewed at a broadcast titled “The Future is Now: Preparing IT Infrastructure for Net Zero Operations,” and revealed a sustainability action gap.
451 Research, Forrester and Canalys independently collected data from more than 3,000 global participants, include the largest colocation and cloud providers, IT solution providers and IT professionals across many segments and organization sizes. Overall, findings consistently demonstrate that across the data centre and IT industry, there is discrepancy between where companies think they are and implementing full lifecycle sustainability programs across their IT infrastructure.
According to the 451 Research findings, in surveying 1,100 IT professionals responsible for core and distributed IT, whereas 26% of participants self-identified as having a full lifecycle sustainability program covering all the infrastructure, only 14% are taking the actions to have implemented the programs. The analysis further identifies 22% as not addressing sustainability as a major focus, though may have efficiency initiatives to improve specific areas of operations.
“Data centres play a critical role in driving Electricity 4.0 which we believe is the key to changing the trajectory of climate change. As an industry, we have a responsibility to drive forward our environmental commitments with extreme urgency. We’ve made some progress but to avoid a major energy challenge, all data centres – including distributed edge data centres -- must be more sustainable, efficient, adaptive, and resilient,” says Pankaj Sharma, executive vice president, Secure Power Division at Schneider Electric.
“The research is clear – the industry knows sustainability needs to be prioritized but challenges still exist to taking action and will take a collaborative effort to overcome. The good news is the technology to take action in sustainability exists today. Now is the time to act.”
In addition to releasing these research studies, Schneider Electric made several new announcements live from its global headquarters in Paris, all of which are designed to help data centre and IT professionals make progress towards their sustainability goals
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Partnerships to scale collaboration and accelerate success and sustainability
To tackle the climate crisis and drive measurable progress on sustainability goals, no one company can do it alone. Schneider Electric works with a network of partners to co-innovate, co-create and co-sell to deliver more efficient, more sustainable products and solutions at scale.
To further this progress, Schneider Electric announced today its new alliance partnership with IT service provider Kyndryl. This partnership solidifies the ways we are working together to make the solutions we bring to market in a much smoother and efficient fashion, while expanding the portfolios of our channel partners. The global strategic alliance will deliver increased sustainability through various programs including recycling, electrical microgrids, lithium-ion batteries and energy storage systems.
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Updated IT Partner Program to help partners to grow their businesses
Building on the company’s award-winning channel history, Schneider Electric’s updated IT Partner Program helps partners to grow and differentiate their business for the long-term. The new evolution of its partner program supports IT channel partners with a simplified program structure and diverse specializations for key sectors including data centres, IT solutions, software, and services with a new range of sales tools, training and enablement resources.
Further, it includes new benefits aligned with each of its specialization paths and offers a clear sustainability strategy for partners via Schneider Electric Green Premium solutions, which offer sustainable performance and circularity by design. Partners can become strategic advisors and experts in their market across multiple IT competencies by enabling the development of diverse business models, simplifying and increasing transparency for requirements and benefits and strengthening channel-centric practice.
Schneider Electric releases Smart-UPS Modular Ultra, the most sustainable modular single-phase UPS of its kind
Launched today, APC Smart-UPS Modular Ultra is the first modular UPS with lithium-ion technology in the industry. Its highly modular, scalable and redundant design combined with up to 2.5x power density allows for enhanced power protection in an unmatched size, new levels of resiliency, lower total cost of ownership, and longer life – enabling customers to scale or adjust as the business grows or the needs change. The circularity in the UPS design combined with lithium-ion technology position it as the smallest, lightest, most powerful, modular UPS of its kind. This innovative, sustainable and scalable UPS will be Green Premium Certified.
EcoStruxure IT addresses the monitoring and management of hybrid IT infrastructure
Additionally, the company announced the expansion of its award-winning EcoStruxure IT DCIM software. This update evolves data centre infrastructure management software from individual data centres to cover full, hybrid IT environment and addresses industry requirements for more resilient, secure, and sustainable IT infrastructure. EcoStruxure IT features a custom solutions team comprised of skilled engineers who speak 24 languages and perform customer integrations everywhere in the world.
Industry professionals around the globe can try the software and the security assessment for free for 30 days by creating an EcoStruxure IT account. Visit EcoStruxureIT.com for individual offer availability or to create an account.
