Schneider Electric Unveils New Research and Innovations to Prepare IT Infrastructure for Net Zero Operations

New independent research exposes sustainability action gap in the data centre and IT industries

Schneider Electric Prepares IT Infrastructure for Net Zero

Schneider Electric has released three independent research studies to better understand the maturity of sustainability initiatives within IT and data centre organisations, and more specifically, where the IT and data centre industry stand in achieving this vision of net-zero IT operations.

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 organisation 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 prioritised 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.

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 specialisations 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 specialisation 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.

Research conducted by Canalys found that the number of IT Resellers in the European Market is beginning to stabilise after 4-5 years of consolidation. However, most partners across the region are operating with multiple business types and need vendor partner programs to be more flexible and reflective of the market trends. The survey found 65% of partners wanted to strengthen their relationship with vendors, while 60% wanted to improve profitability and sales, and 50% wanted to build their expertise.

Partner transformation is also driving change, with more resellers shifting from hardware sales to becoming IT Solution providers, and offering Managed Power Services, edge computing and cloud migration services to customers. Furthermore, sustainability remains a key driver of decision making, with research finding 97% of customers are demanding contractual commitments to sustainability when defining and implementing their data centre infrastructure.

The new mySchneider IT Partner Program has been designed based on key feedback from its partner community, supporting the changing requirements of their businesses and helping them capitalise on these new market trends.

“Disruptive trends such as the convergence of IT/OT are driving transformative change in the channel, forcing resellers to adapt from hardware-based sales organisations into multi-faceted solutions providers,” said David Terry, VP, IT Channels, Schneider Electric Europe. “This new era, fueled by the growth of edge computing, cloud migration and IT security, presents opportunities for partners to capture market share and catalyse growth. Our new partner program is reflective of this shift, providing a better structure, with more sales tools, training, enablement and support to make it easier for partners to increase sales pipelines and profitability.”

Easy Modular Data Center All-in-One solution

Schneider Electric has also announced the launch of its new Easy Modular Data Center All-in-One Solution for customers in Europe. Available in 4 standardised form factors with additional configurable options, Easy Modular ‘All-in-One’ Data Centers combine Power, Cooling, and IT equipment into a single, pre-configured solution, providing exceptional value for businesses seeking to implement an edge computing strategy.

The Easy Modular Data Center All-in-One range expands Schneider Electric’s prefabricated, modular data centre offering, and builds upon the successes of its Easy physical infrastructure products, including its Easy Rack, Easy PDU, and Easy UPS offers. With Easy Modular Data Center All-in-One, Schneider Electric has streamlined the design and commissioning process, eliminating upfront engineering work to meet demanding timescales and provide customers with a high-quality, standardised solution in as little as 12 weeks.

EcoStruxure IT addresses the monitoring and management of hybrid IT infrastructure

Additionally, the company announced the expansion of its 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.

“There’s been tremendous change since DCIM first emerged as a software category,” said Kevin Brown, SVP of EcoStruxure Solutions, Secure Power, Schneider Electric. “The hybrid IT environment is challenging even the most sophisticated CIO organisation with maintaining the resiliency, security, and sustainability of their IT systems. We call this trend DCIM 3.0. Schneider Electric is investing in and evolving EcoStruxure IT to provide more capability, flexibility, and deployment options than ever before for enterprises and colocation facilities everywhere in the world.”

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