How data centres drive innovation, transformation, and business-critical sustainability

As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, and starts to look towards recovery, technology is going to be at the forefront of every opportunity. After rapid digital transformation delivered businesses the ability to maintain operations through lockdowns and social distancing, the CIO is the new rock star of the executive team, and CEOs in all sectors are turning to them to ask, “what’s next?”

For many of these CIOs, the answer will be a new look at the data centre. A KPMG report has found that 80 per cent of new revenue will come from digital by 2022. The data centre will be essential in delivering that. 77 per cent of CEOs have reported that COVID-19 has accelerated their digital transformation plans. The data centre will allow ongoing innovation in transformation. Company directors increasingly see power consumption and the carbon footprint as a risk that needs to be mitigated, and as one of the largest sources of power consumption within an organisation, the data centre will innovate there, too. For CIOs to achieve what is going to be tasked of them moving further into 2021 and beyond, the foundations of success will sit at a new look at the data centre.

The role of the data centre in effective transformation

Any CIO trying to manage a data entre environment is grappling with ever-increasing volume, scale and complexity, and with that comes additional power demands, which has a social and potential regulatory impact as sustainability becomes a more pressing topic. Getting the balance of these tensions right is mission-critical to the health of the organisation.

The Huawei FusionModule2000 Smart Modular Data Centre solution gives CIOs the tools to address these often-conflicting challenges by providing them with:

• Scalability and the ability to innovate rapidly. Data centres need to be flexible and easy to scale as consumption demands.
• A new level of efficiency with power use, both as a cost to the business and the social responsibility to minimise the carbon footprint. The regulatory environment around emissions and power use is going to continue to expand. Just this year, Australian enterprises are going to be subject to an emissions tax when trading in the EU, for example. The power draw on their datacentres is going to be a critical cost concern moving forward as further regulations are introduced, and Huawei’s FusionModule2000’s focus on efficiency is such that the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of a single module to as low as 1.245.
• Security and the increasing amount of data that is being networked via data centres. Cybersecurity is a board-level risk management item, and as with power use, it’s also becoming increasingly important to maintain data within the Australian national borders. CIOs need to be cognizant of this.
• Reliability and uptime. As digital becomes more core to products and solutions, the cost of downtime will escalate in turn, so CIOs need to consider reliability and redundancy at the datacentre level. The FusionModule2000 has features including pre-alarm and battery failure auto-shutdown, as well as dehumidification at a constant temperature even at low loads, meaning that it not only delivers reliability, but does so in all climates and conditions.

One example of the success of this solution and focus on the four key values in motion is Hungarian industrial giant, BorsodChem. A leading plastic raw material and inorganic chemical producer in Europe, the company deployed the Huawei FusionModule2000 Smart Modular Data Centre Solution, working on the philosophy that “the intelligent use of technology in every process is the only way to improve operational efficiency and reduce energy consumption at the same time.”

By collaborating with Huawei, BorsodChem was able to improve the data centre power supply efficiency by more than two percent, and improve PUE by over 0.4. These numbers are significant enough to sharply reduce overheads and, ultimately, improve BorsodChem’s competitiveness.

For Pintér Ernő, Deputy IT Director of BorsodChem, the solution has been quick to roll out, and started delivering its promised results rapidly, allowing the company to quickly move to a more innovative approach to technology. “The modular data centre’s construction period was substantially shortened, ensuring uninterrupted manufacturing at our plants,” he said of the solution.

Meeting the new data centre demands

Huawei’s Smart Data Centre concept has been designed to meet the CIOs needs with regards to transformation and the datacentre. Being both simple and modular means that CIOs can deploy the data centre quickly, scale it as necessary, and maintain it more easily. Not only does it therefore work for the head office, but it becomes an edge solution for real-time interactions on location. Furthermore, with a triple reliability design and proactive protection, the Smart Data Centre is optimised for maximum uptime and addresses the challenge of cybersecurity.

The Smart Data Centre has been designed around four core values, which Huawei sees as critical to the health and success of data centre environments in the future: Creating added value

By focusing on modualization and intelligence, Huawei Smart Data Centres create value for the enterprise by reducing the TCO and helping IT teams to minimise construction periods and reduce power consumption, while maintaining leading standards of security and reliability. Huawei’s iCooling innovation is just one example of this in action, with AI energy efficiency optimisation technology ensuring that the data centre remains running at optimal efficiency, regardless of the fluctuations in demand being placed on it.

Boosting productivity

The Smart Data Centre helps enterprises derive the full value of their investment by ensuring that they’re full utilising existing resources and minimising waste in delivering digital services.

Enabling a green approach to data centres

Huawei remains firmly committed to minimising the energy use within a data centre. This not only helps enterprises meet their regulatory and social obligations, but it minimises costs for the   computing jobs  being undertaken. This is no better exemplified than through Huawei’s iPower AI solution, which can save enterprises millions on their data centre costs.

A partnership between vendor and enterprise focused on winning

No two organisations have the same IT requirements, environments, and transformation goals. To roll out an effective data centre environment, Huawei works closely with its customers to understand their needs and pain points, and structures data centres around addressing those.

Peter Perjesi, the CEO Intelligent Power Solutions, the company that deployed the Huawei FusionModule2000 for BorsodChem, said that Huawei has developed a solution that runs the full gamut, and puts enterprises on the footing that they need to achieve new levels of innovation. “Huawei FusionModule2000 is a next-generation, smart modular data centre, integrating power, cooling, rack, cabling, and management systems,” he said. “We were amazed at the newest Huawei solutions and cutting-edge technologies during the installation, such as Huawei’s iPower, iCooling, and iManager systems. We have never seen such a high-quality design for an all-in-one solution.”

As the BorsodChem experience shows, going green has become a business necessity, but CIOs and enterprises shouldn’t be treating this as a punitive measure by government and regulators that they need to manage. Rather, it should be seen as part of the broader transformation strategy, and an opportunity to deliver to the organisation an IT environment that will allow them to capitalise on the new business opportunities, while also improving their footprint and, ultimately, bolstering their IT efficiency.

Interested in understanding more about value-added data centre innovation, and what it can do for your business

From March 24 to 26, Huawei will host the Industrial Digital Transformation Conference 2021 online, exploring the power of the resilient and innovative digital world from three perspectives: business, technology and ecosystems. Featuring a series of activities – from keynote speeches to forums and roundtables – the Industrial Digital Transformation Conference 2021 will be an open and inclusive platform that serves as the backdrop for in-depth, ambitious dialogue.

Click here to register.