UAE University, Al Ain, and Schneider Electric joined hands to reduce the carbon footprint on the campus. We bring you the case study.

CLAIM

Schneider Electric delivers green data centre solution to UAE University, Al Ain.

THE BACKGROUND

Established in 1976 and credited with being the first comprehensive national university in the UAE, the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) announced plans for a new campus in Al Ain. One of its objectives was to create a sustainable facility. Schneider Electric was commissioned to achieve the goal.

CASE STUDY

Aim and scope:

The company’s scope of work encompassed IT integration design build and delivery of a green data centre infrastructure for the new campus.

UAEU’s Green ICT Vision mandated the ICT deployment mission to follow the environmental and sustainable philosophy of the Three Rs – reduce, re-use and recycle.

Methods employed:

Specific solutions put forward by Schneider included the implementation of an Infrastructure-embedded solution comprising Schneider Electric Racks/Enclosures, In-Row RP cooling units, Schneider Electric In-Row RD Cooling units and Schneider ElectricN+1 UPS units.

It created a separate dedicated university data centre.

It retro-fitted the Faculty of IT (FIT) building to reuse existing space and provide cooling.

It installed an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) system and back-up generator.

CONCLUSION

Schneider Electric’s solutions helped the UAEU save its entire real-estate carbon footprint, reuse existing space, provide efficient cooling, have UPS systems, and back-up generator facilities. Deploying sustainable strategies facilitated this achievement.

Other positive outcomes:

The FIT building also now hosts 20 advanced ICT laboratories, including an 8.3 T-Flop super grid computer, and the UAEU Net-Pop room providing WAN, LAN, Internet and Ankabut (Internet 2) connectivity. The newly established Schneider Electric data centre provides the backbone for the next generation unified intelligent network – one of the largest academic networks in the region with more than 350 wiring closets connected to over 25,000 IP ports that offer a link to the UAEU data centre via redundant fibre.

Following the implementation of the data centre, Schneider Electric was recognised with the ‘Green Award for Sustainability’ for the UAE University data centre project.

COMMENTS AND COMMENDATIONS

What the key players say …

Muhammed Imran, Acting Director ICT, UAEU said: “As our services and applications become more centralised and more converged, the demand on our data centre will begin to grow, as we’ll require more robust equipment. Schneider Electric’s Infrastructure provides a modular approach to data centre deployment. Not only does the new data centre provide more capacity, but it also has room for more equipment cabinets to meet growth needs. When the time comes, the UPS can be upgraded with additional power and battery modules, and the cooling with additional units. In the meantime, UAEU is able to conserve its capital budget as well as gain OP-EX benefits from having the IT load requirement and infrastructure supply closely matched to one another.

“The Schneider Electric data centre delivered what we needed, both for immediate and future requirements. The UAEU’s planned focus on using green ICT as the key driver of its educational emphasis is paying off with the new green ICT campus.”

Commenting on the benefit of working with a client from the very earliest stage of the design process, Sameer Nagrash, Enterprise Accounts Manager, IT Business, Schneider Electric said: “The design of the data centre solution was orchestrated by the UAEU’s design team. However, in our capacity as a trusted adviser, we worked to ensure that the key solution and technology was selected. Within our capacity as project managers, we coordinated with all involved parties to ensure deadlines were adhered to.”