With the right tools, IT teams can also be proactive as opposed to reactive in their efforts.
“Sometimes, the power strategy that’s been put in place was phased in over decades. It’s been in place for a long time, and it might not be monitored appropriately,” Aziz says. “A solution that allows them to use data-driven insights in order to take actions, even while being remote, is a huge advantage.”
Finally, a modern platform will deliver the scalability needed to ensure that campuses can meet changing needs.
As energy-hungry research efforts and artificial intelligence use cases continue to ramp up across campus, “they need something that works across both the legacy systems and also their more modern infrastructures, something that integrates with existing IT systems and can grow as the campus evolves,” Aziz says.
READ MORE: Four ways to cool higher education data centers.
Modern Power Management Tools Prioritize Visibility
An intelligent power management company, Eaton offers Brightlayer software, which delivers visibility and control across connected power assets. This empowers campus leaders to monitor, manage and optimize critical infrastructure across the enterprise and improve availability.
“When we’re talking about visibility, you get a single pane of glass allowing you to see all of the connected devices on the network,” Aziz says. “From a management perspective, it eliminates manual work, provides capability for remote shutdown and delivers data-driven alerts.”
For example, when a battery needs replacing, IT receives an alert rather than discovering an issue after a UPS starts beeping onsite. This reduces the cost of truck rolls and manual inspection.
“From the single pane of glass, you’re able to pre-emptively and proactively avoid shutdowns and outages — which can be catastrophic,” he says.
Brightlayer is available in a basic or advanced version. Both are designed to support institutions of different sizes and complexities, depending on factors such as the number of buildings, distributed locations and overall campus scale. “This helps address key concerns around scalability,” he says. “If a school is on a significant growth path, they may want to look at the more advanced version of the software, while a smaller campus may find the capabilities in the basic version are sufficient.”
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The right power management solution “allows campus leaders full visibility and the confidence that they are not missing key information, and it saves them a huge amount of time that they can then use to focus on higher-priority issues,” Aziz says.
For those looking to improve, the first step is taking stock of the current environment. “Take an inventory of the power solutions that are currently in place to ensure everything is working and to identify any critical issues,” he says.
Eaton can help at every stage of that process. In addition to offering a free power assessment, in which an engineer walks through the environment to identify gaps, Eaton can also provide a demo of Brightlayer for campus leaders who want to see the software in action. “A demo helps customers better understand how Brightlayer fits into their environment and how it can simplify day-to-day operations,” Aziz says. “It’s one of the easiest ways to see the value right away.”
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