High Speed Data Transport Feature Editorial

Expanding its collaborative relationship with IBM (News - Alert), Panduit Corp. is partnering with the technology giant to bring large modular, plug and play data centers to market.

According to Panduit officials, Enterprise Modular Data Centers (EMDC) are large modular data centers designed in smaller, standardized modules with the capability to plug in additional capacity over time as needed, such as power and cooling. This approach enables clients to bring new, highly scalable data centers online three-to-six months sooner than a custom designed version.

Panduit's unified physical infrastructure-based solutions leverage an optimized physical infrastructure as the foundation, which enables convergence across communication, computing, control, power and security systems. Panduit officials said that these end-to-end solutions drive operational and financial advantages across the enterprise, allowing businesses to improve reliability, reduce costs, heighten agility and support sustainability initiatives.

Vineeth Ram, Panduit's vice president of global strategic marketing, said the Tinley Park, Ill.-based company shares IBM’s vision that data centers can be constructed in a flexible way with the ability to scale on-demand and significantly reduce initial capital and operating costs.

By teaming with IBM on the EMDC initiative, Panduit is helping enterprises deploy sustainable technology infrastructures that meet evolving business requirements with a flexible and scalable on-demand data center solution that defers up to 40 percent of the capital expense and 50 percent of the operational expense until capacity is required.

“Panduit and IBM share a similar vision to help organizations optimize their power, cooling, and space needs within the data center environment,” said Ram. “By supporting IBM’s family of data center solutions, such as EMDC, with our own UPI-based solutions that optimize the physical infrastructure, together we can make that vision a reality.”

In fact, more than 60 percent of CIOs around the world are expecting significant change brought by soaring data volumes, increasingly complex analyses and ever larger populations of users, according to Steven Sams, IBM’s vice president of global site and facilities services.

“With today’s announcements IBM and partners like Panduit demonstrate our ability to lead data center innovation to meet changing requirements with a very flexible plug and play approach, allowing data center capabilities to be added – and paid for – when and where they are needed,” added Sams.

Panduit’s line of High Speed Data Transport (HSDT) products provided the LAN and SAN infrastructure for the EMDC.  Company officials said that when deployed as an integrated solution, Panduit HSDT and cabinet systems for EMDC applications enable data center managers to optimize airflow and reduce energy costs by 25 percent or more.

Panduit brings a unique ability to integrate such cabinet systems with cabling, cable management, pathways, active devices, and related accessories, helping customers conserve data center real estate while managing extreme heat loads and optimizing power and cooling efficiencies, according to Jack Tison, chief technology officer of Panduit.

“Working on the IBM EMDC initiative allows us to apply our high speed data transport, integrated cabinet systems, and software expertise to optimize the IBM platform and promote scalable, sustainable UPI-based data center design practices for these critical applications,” Tison said.