Make the Most of Your Energy - APC (KL Hilton 5 Mar 09)

Image via Wikipedia

APC (American Power Conversion) had a press conference for local media which includes bloggers. Check out the corporate fact sheet.

APC was previously acquired by Schneider Electric not too long ago.

The media is greeted to a presentation by Mr. TS.Khoo (VP for ASEAN). According to TS (as he preferred to be known), during this economic crisis period, ASEAN is the place to be.



APC is most known for its innovation capabilities and the acquisition by Schneider caters for the ability to provide total solution and also turnkey solutions.

To understand this easily, APC used to provide IT-centric products and services while Schneider used to provide products and services on electrical engineering. Now, with their combined capability, they can simply provide a 4C design model for data centers.

1. Components - Modular and scalable, with best-in-class efficiency
   
2. Close-coupled cooling - Placement of cooling units near the heat source
   
3. Containment - Thermal containment of airflow in high-density zones
   
4. Capacity and energy management - Instrumented intelligence to optimize use of power and cooling capacity
   

which will result in energy management in buildings. It yields the following benefits:

1. Renewable energies solutions
2. Automation
3. Energy efficiency
4. Critical power and cooling
5. Eletrical distribution & wiring devices

The challenges of today's industry are two things; the ever increasing demand for energy while there is a need to reduce emission. Ok, so even if you don't care about the environment, perhaps cost efficiency is something that will bother you.

The vision of APC (by Schneider Electric) is thus to provide safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green energy usage. Their target market is data center because that contributes to about 2% of energy usage globally. No big deal but it generates 98% of opportunities. Check out survey from IDC last year (2008).

According to Mr.Benedict Soh (Enterprise Business Development Director), energy consumption for data center is growing at 12% per year and the pressing issue for data center to tackle is in fact power and cooling efficiency which not just to help the environment but also to save cost.

Most people like me thought that APC was just selling UPS (Unlimited Power Supply) but in actual fact, they also provide professional services and consultancy to clientele in the industries of banking, health care, telecommunication and government sectors.

And more interestingly, data center need not just limit to big data-centers like MyLoca in Cyber Jaya or AIMS somewhere near Bukit Bintang. It can also be a data-center for a factory with self managed applications servers and etc. As long as you need to house your servers properly with air-conditioning, you can consider it as data-center. In that case, my office has a data-center too.

Mr.TS Khoo is optimistic about the current economy crisis, first of all, let me assure you that they don't have cash flow problem because of recent acquisition from Schneider Electric which has a total sales revenues of Euro 4,652 billion. Also, APC by itself is Euro 17.3 billion revenues company with combined workforce of 120,000 people around the world.

On the question about the trend of company being acquired and so there will be less data center around, Mr. TS Khoo has this to offer.

First of all, the company focuses on solutions and in any good or bad day, it is beneficial for them if there are more data centers or if there are more consolidation of data centers. This is because have solutions for data center consolidation as well. Period.

He added that at times of crisis, the strategy is to stay with customers by providing more supports and also better services. (and more discounts) APC relies on and values business partners as one of its business elements.

Finally, APC is also announcing two new launches which are:

1. Integration with Microsoft Systems Center Operation Manager 2007
   Integration of APC's data center management suite to tightly couple with Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager 2007. This integration will give data center managers the ability to view and manage physical infrastructure, including power, cooling, physical space and security, as well as providing a comprehensive view of the health of the servers, applications, and clients within the datacenter.
2. Second Generation Symmetra PX - All in one modular power protection UPS System for data centers
   Symmetra PX UPS provides up to 48kW of power protection for 400V deployments in a single rack footprint. Additionally it offers longer life batteries with up to 25 percent more runtime and hot scaleable power distribution. These new capabilities enable the second generation Symmetra PX to extend the product family's reputation as the leading power protection system providing high levels of availability at the lower overall total cost of ownership.

Presenters' Profile:

Mr. TS. Khoo
ASEAN Vice President

Khoo Teng Seen joined APC in May 2006 as General Manager of Services, Asia Pacific and was later promoted as the Vice President of Services for Asia Pacific/Japan. Currently, TS is the ASEAN Vice President, overseeing the business strategy in ASEAN, ensuring that APC across Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand remains focused on customers and partners. He will lead the team in developing customer-oriented processes, delivering innovative energy efficient solutions in data centers, and building successful relationships as part of Schneider Electric.

Having joined APCI with 17 years experience from the IT industry and almost 10 years in regional services management across Asia Pacific, TS has been involved in building, growing and transforming services businesses throughout his career.

TS started his Singapore career in IT from 1992, working for a multi-national corporation as a manufacturing consultant. In 1997, he was assigned to establish and manage a large consulting practice in Japan. He later returned to Singapore and was promoted to Director of Services and was instrumental in equipping his team wit the right technical and professional skills to assist the transformation of their company from a traditional services provider to a consultative services trusted advisor.

Benedict Soh
Enterprise Business Development Director

Benedict joined APC in year 2003 as an Enterprise Account Manager with the responsibility of managing Singapore key customer accounts and APC Data Center InfraStruXure® sales. Having consistently exceeded the company’s expectations over the past few years, Benedict was promoted to Enterprise Business Development Director. Benedict would be responsible to lead the ASEAN business development team in Enterprise System and Solution strategic planning.

In the current capacity as Enterprise Business Development Director, Benedict would be managing the APC product life-cycle conception through introduction to evolution, driving successful value position of the APC data center products and solutions in the market by ensuring that the product lines meet the growth targets for the assigned market segment. Benedict also supports various operating ASEAN countries in their bidding processes and sales cycles.

With over 13 years of experience in the IT industry with specialization in the data center infrastructure business, Benedict has held various positions, mainly in the area of account management, sales management and business development. Prior to joining APC, he was a Sales Team leader at Datasphere (S) Pte Ltd, a turnkey data center solutions provider.

Benedict graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor Degree in Electronics Engineering, majoring in IT and Power Electronics.

With strong industry knowledge and a technical background, Benedict is tasked with growing the data center solution business in ASEAN with achieving the corporate objective of “Trusted Advisor” in the data center arena.

IDC's Green IT Conference 2008 - Kuala Lumpur

1. Problems and Opportunities - by IDC:

Driven by the realization that climate change is an issue that businesses can, and should, mitigate, both commercial and government organizations are under pressure to 'go green'. IDC's research has shown this driver has filtered down into the IT department as organizations question what Green IT can do in this overall 'Green' strategy. As CIOs embark on this journey, there is clear evidence that 'going green' not only saves the planet, it also makes good business sense. Hence, the IDC event theme, The Economy of Ecology.



This is the first leg of the 9 to be held in 9 major cities in SEA.

IDC presented the following agenda which consists of three main items.

1. The Green Bet - IDC Framework for green IT.
2. The 2.9% Problem
3. The 97.1% opportunity

The Green Bet:

Three major components:

1. Green Business - Doing business in a green way
2. Green Energy - Using green ways to generate energy
3. Green Tech. - Green products

The challenge to get CEOs and CIOs to adopt such framework ?

Most CIOs do not have Green IT as part of their KPIs and usually do not go far from the followings:

• Budget Management
• Meeting Deadlines
• Innovation

Another point to look into is that the drivers for investment in Green IT according to IDC are the followings by percentage:

• Cost-Saving - 75.3%
• CSR 58.2%
• Products which helps compliance - 55.8%
• Recycling - 45.5%

This brings good news, people are motivated by cost-saving and CIOs are actually starting to count on Green IT as a tool for achieving higher competitiveness.


The 2.9% Problems:

According to IDC, 2.9% is just about the percentage of total US electricity being used by data centers (in the USA).

So, they are tasked to reducing the electricity consumption because it is significant even though 2.9% is not a big thing and also the fact that power and cooling (P/C) cost is actually higher than investment into servers.

Big players like Google, Microsoft and Fujitsu have all built their data centers with green technologies and policies.

As a result the influence, the priorities of data centers for SEA have started to have Green IT (Power & Cooling) in the percentage range of 10% to 50%. Not too bad actually, check out the chart below.


So, power and cooling is a big thing.

IDC recommends that organization will embrace the Green IT culture by focusing on power and cooling as the starting point using the following framework:

• Measure
• Design
• Conserve
• Reduce
• Predict

As a result of that, organizations can reap good energy saving benefits, in particular:

• Hardware perspective - 34%
• Operations - 19%
• Power & Cooling efficiencies - 27%

That is a total of 50% savings!!

The 97.1% Opportunity:

The 2.9% problems give us vast opportunity to improve and create economies. It is about sustainability.

Green technologies mean big business. According to IDC, the following technology will generate the business value of:

• Smart Grids - $125 billion
• Smart Offices - $340 billion
• Smart Engines - $107 billion
• Smart Logistics - $442 billion

So, with Green IT, not only organization can reap direct benefits (cost-saving), it creates opportunity for CIOs to be proactive in terms of driving agendas and creating business case.

In short, Green IT + Business Case = Values.

The presentation was conducted by Mr. Philip Carter, Associate Research Director, APAC IT Services Research, IDC APAC. Download the full presentation slides from here.

2. Total Solutions - By HP

According to Mr. David Triggs, HP has all the solutions for Green IT.

HP stresses that technology is no longer just supporting business, it runs the business.

HP Helps Customers to Build Business Case for Green IT:

Foremost, HP business technology portfolio helps customers to build business case for adopting Green IT. The core components of HP services are:

1. Business Information Optimization
2. Business Technology Optimizataion
3. Adaptive Infrastructure

According to HP, energy efficiency creates the following benefits for customers.

• Reduce Cost
• Mitigate Risks
• Enable Growth
• Protect Brand & Unlock Opportunities

This is especially true for those people dealing with data centers.

So, HP IT Environment Lifecycle Management aims at helping customers to get to green business technology faster and with less risk. The lifecycle defines 4 major steps:

• Acquire
• Manage
• Retire
• Transition

And their services include design, consolidation and implementation; total solution.



So, why choose HP to help with going green ? Because they have best practices. Also, because they have done a lot of 'advertisements' with this regard such as:

HP's goal is to reduce combined energy consumption by 25% by 2010
• Raising standards in supply chain
• Replacing IT power costs with renewable sources (solar systems)

HP's Energy Innovation Roadmap ?

• Design energy-efficient products
• Improve energy efficiency of customer & HP operations
• Rethink energy use to transform society

Last but no least, HP recommends virtualization.

Mr. David Trigss is Senior IT Consultant for HP, download the full presentation slides from here.

Also check out www.hp.com/go/greencomputing

3. Intel Felt Obligated with their CSR

On a the holistic, Intel's role in energy efficiency has always been:

• Committed to Sustainability
• Build Leading Products
• Having Data Center Best Practices
• Initiated Industry Leaderships

But, the biggest thing is not really the operations part of it.. it is their product. Intel's CSR (corporate social responsibility) reported that 80% of Intel’s global carbon footprint results from the
industry’s use of Intel's products. So, this is big problem for them. They have to innovate even better products and therefore they have recently created the New 45NM Hi-K Processor; Quad-core Intel Xeon Processor 5400 Series.



This is an award winning invention and it really does the followings:

• Improved Transistor Density
• 20% improved transistor switching speed
• 30% reduction in switching Power

The makes Intel able to continue with Moore's law pursuit without compromising the CSR.

And Intel recommends server refresh and virtualization.

Server refresh basically means the act of dumping old hardwares for newer ones in order to get more benefits than trying to achieve faster ROI. Not only that, by means of a scenario of comparing the data center technology of 2004 with 2008, undergoing server refresh actually produces the ROI of less than 2 years. That is:

• 83% reduction in floor space
• 87% reduction in annual costs

This gives you $57k of estimated energy savings.

Fantastic.

Intel's presentation is facilitated by Mr. Eddie Toh (Regional Platform Marketing Manager, Server Platforms Group, Intel APAC). Proceed to download the full slides from here.

4. Virtualization by Novell

Virtualization is hero of the day; it is the buzz word. The concept of virtualization is that only 20% of your hardware capacities are being used to do any work, while 80% will be doing nothing, hence burnt.

Suse Linux Enterprise has built-in virtualization technology. It has the Xen 3.x
Hypervisor-Based Virtualization, it software and it can work well with Microsoft operating system. This is not possible before the interop partnership between Microsoft and Novell. Check out more, www.moreinterop.com.



With virtualization, you can treat hardware and resources as software by just copy and paste your operating systems (that is running with live processes) to and fro hardwares. This forms the basis for cloud computing.

All SAP solutions are supported on Suse Linux Enterprise and now with virtualization, you can actually treat Suse Linux as the main platform while treating Microsoft as the ad-hoc platform.

With virtualization, replication and automation technology, Novell is able to deliver to you:

• Server Consolidation
• High availability and Disaster Recovery
• Data Center Automation - Humanless data center (to mitigate human errors)

Novell's presentation is presented by Mr. Kam Han Wen (Senior Technology Specialist). Check out the full slides at here.

Malaysia's Perspective ?

The Green IT concept is actually another way for Malaysia IT companies to break the ice. Not long ago, the buzzword was SOA (service oriented architecture). Now ?? almost forgotten by everybody.

So, would Malaysia company brace up the challenges now ?

Conclusion:

• Small problem, big opportunity.
  
• Green IT biggest benefit are cost-saving and enhance competitiveness.
• Buy Intel's products
• Use virtualization. It is cool.

Also check out SAS Intelligently Green Forum 2008.

IDC Explores The Economy Of Ecology At Its Inaugural Asia/Pacific Green IT Event

Kuala Lumpur, August 7, 2008 – Driven by the realization that climate change is an issue that businesses can, and should, mitigate, both commercial and government organizations are under pressure to 'go green'. IDC's research has shown this driver has filtered down into the IT department as organizations question what Green IT can do in this overall 'Green' strategy. As CIOs embark on this journey, there is clear evidence that 'going green' not only saves the planet, it also makes good business sense. Hence, the IDC event theme, The Economy of Ecology.

IDC’s Asia/Pacific Green IT Conference 2008, which is set to be held across 8 major cities in Asia/Pacific, will kick-off in mid-August. By bringing industry experts together to share strategic insights into how organizations can reduce the impact of their IT operations on the environment, IDC plans to highlight the drivers and metrics that are important in the Green IT market and to offer actionable advice on driving Green IT initiatives in the region.

In terms of business benefits, IDC's research reveals that CIOs are deriving tangible returns in terms of reduced cost through streamlining operations, improved asset utilization, compliance with regulations and, overall, contributing to a socially responsible corporate image. The starting point for most Green IT initiatives tends to be within the data center, because this is where most potential energy efficiency gains can be made. However, IDC believes that with all of the current focus on reducing power consumption within the data center, the role of the distributed office environment within the Green IT ecosystem in Asia/Pacific including Japan (APJ) region has been largely underplayed.

"As with the general Green IT space, the initial focus will be on cost-saving in terms of reducing electricity consumption in the distributed environment," states Philip Carter, Principal of Green IT Research at IDC Asia/Pacific. "Part of these organizations are beginning to realize that thin client computing and desktop virtualization can result in significant energy saving at the client level, particularly in large-scale environments. Smaller organizations are also taking advantage of energy management features within existing equipment, as well as setting up 'device switch-off' campaigns for machines when not in use."

IDC believes that organizations need to incorporate the notion of the 'Green Office' into their overall Green IT strategy by ensuring a positive business and environmental outcome in the following three main areas:

1. Electricity Consumption by PCs (desktops and laptops) as well as peripherals (printers and fax machines)
   
2. IT Asset Disposal & Material Usage (of the IT equipments outlined above)
   
3. Document Management (specifically in terms of the printing environment)

In terms of IT Asset Disposal, findings from IDC's Asia/Pacific Green Poll highlights that organizations are becoming more aware of the need to dispose of IT assets in a more environmentally-friendly way, particularly in the more mature markets in the region, as outlined in the chart below:


Will your organization be performing a formal assessment of your IT equipment-recycling program over the next 12 months?

Clearly, recycling activity does vary by country, with ANZ and Japan leading the way in the Asia/Pacific region. IDC believes that the impact of European Union (EU) legislation, such as the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive which sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods, will set the standard for organizations to aspire towards in the region, even if they are not directly required to comply with the regulation. Similarly, initiatives such as the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), which is now a US federal government procurement requirement and additional EU legislation in the form of the Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, are ensuring organizations assess the extent of potentially toxic materials being used in IT equipment that vendors are bringing to market.

Finally, the management of the document environment, and specifically paper, is also a key factor within this Green Office framework. Although one would think that paper would be easier to recycle than PCs, IDC’s Green Poll highlights that a higher proportion of organizations are actively recycling PCs and desktops as compared to paper. Philip adds, “The 'paperless office' is still a long way into the future, and until we get there, the benefits of recycling paper cannot be underestimated in terms of ensuring a positive environmental outcome from a Green IT strategy in the office environment.”

More insights from the Green Poll will be revealed at IDC's Asia/Pacific Green IT Conference 2008 which will take place on August 12 at Shangri-la, Kuala Lumpur. Event details can be found on here. For press enquiries, please contact Belinda Yap at +603-2169 7521 or byap@idc.com.

Notes to the Editor:

If you would like to arrange for an interview with IDC's analysts or any of the Green IT conference speakers, please contact Belinda Yap at +603-2169 7521 orbyap@idc.com.

About IDC’s Asia/Pacific Green Poll

This is an ongoing end-user survey focusing on awareness and adoption of Green IT in the region. Green IT is a growing, global phenomenon, with customers seeking out IT suppliers whose offerings are more energy efficient, more material efficient, less hazardous, designed for greater recyclability, and supported by end-of-life recycling programs. IDC's green IT research team — in Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Pacific — offers the only 360-degree perspective on green IT: analyzing the complete spectrum of offerings, services, and providers as well as customer adoption of green IT across all major regions and within energy, manufacturing, and other key industries.

About IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 100 countries. For more than 44 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company.

For press enquiries, please contact:

Belinda Yap
Senior Events & Marketing Executive
+603-2169 7521
byap@idc.com