Unified Physical Infrastructure Feature Editorial

The communications space has witnessed a convergence of systems and technologies, thanks to the advent of IP networking, which allows multiple forms of communication traffic to be delivered over converged networks. Similarly, IP-based platforms are expanding to cover nearly all business and data center infrastructures, allowing systems to be connected in ways never before possible.

 

The challenge that a Unified Physical Infrastructure addresses is that these core systems — control, power, computing, security, and communications — have traditionally existed in a siloed environment. This means that, again not unlike communications infrastructures, these disparate systems need be restructured to create a complete converged system in order to perform at optimal efficiency as one large collective system.

 

Individually, these five systems are designed to act logically to support their objectives, but each impacts the others, creating a need for collaborative solutions to enable communication between them to drive the benefits promised by convergence, like business agility, cost savings, sustainability, customization, and globalization.

 

To drive the evolution to a converged physical infrastructure, Panduit has launched an initiative, which it calls a Unified Physical Infrastructure vision. UPI, as Panduit’s vice president of Global Marketing Vineeth Ram explains, is a concept or an outcome that adopters will realize by applying principles and solutions designed to unite their various systems.

 

Panduit’s vision provides a much broader view of infrastructure, necessitated by the extension of IP networking well beyond voice and data networks and the IT and data center environments, to building facilities, including lighting, ventilation, air conditioning, and other systems, to factory floors, including sensors, controllers, access, security, and more.

 

“Today, no matter where you look, you have these five systems playing a role,” said Ram. “Panduit is focusing on the convergence of all these systems of the physical infrastructure and our entire approach is a unified, holistic, integrated view towards the entire physical infrastructure.”

 

Traditionally, businesses have purchased and deployed different products for different systems independently, deploying and connecting them in infinite combinations. This approach often limits the efficiency of the overall infrastructure and increases risk. 

 

What Panduit is striving to do is to take all the capabilities of the components that comprise these systems, and provide a roadmap for customers looking to deploy them in an integrated fashion, driving convergence across the entire physical infrastructure.

 

Panduit’s portfolio of products and solutions help drive the notion of a unified physical infrastructure but, in order to truly make it a reality, Panduit is also working closely with an ecosystem of partners that includes some of the largest players in the IP technology space, like IBM, Cisco (News - Alert), Rockwell, EMC, and others. 

 

Through its alliances, Panduit is driving this unified, holistic approach by developing holistic reference architectures for the physical infrastructure across the five systems – computing, communication, power, control, and security – allowing them to be more effectively connected, managed, and automated.  The end result is a design that will allow customers to deploy systems architectures with an optimized physical foundation, enabling them to solve cross-functional challenges that have, until now, inhibited true efficiency and automation, which support eco-friendly programs, and which provide end-to-end network security.