Network Communications News (NCN) October 2016 | Page 8

I NDUST RY NEW S AEI Cables announcement Cable manufacturer AEI Cables has reassured its customers about orders and deliveries after entering into a period of consultation to discuss possible redundancies. The company, based at Birtley in Co Durham, is reassuring its customers that business will continue as normal and that all orders will be fulfilled for now and the foreseeable future. A spokesman for AEI Cables said, ‘The company has been making significant financial losses for a long period of time and only continues to function with the financial support and guarantees of its parent company. ‘The company believes that profitability is possible only with a fundamental restructuring and a marked improvement in productivity.’ The spokesman said the company could not say how many redundancies may be necessary until the statutory consultation period is complete, and it could not rule out closure of the site in the worst scenario. The company – which employs 240 people – will consider all proposals for avoiding the redundancies and reducing the numbers affected including sale of the business as a going concern. The company started formal consultation on Wednesday 14th September, for a minimum of 45 days. BSRIA in support of new EU tool to design efficient data centres BSRIA has alerted its members to an EU funded research project that has launched a free online tool to help design energy efficient and renewable data centres. The RenewIT tool is designed to help operators, designers and stakeholders maximise the sustainability of new data centre sites by comparing more than 60 European locations by electricity costs, access to renewable power and other factors. Financial services company ING has been involved with RenewIT from the start of the project. Using the tool, RenewIT demonstrated how ING could improve the efficiency of one of its zero carbon data centres by adding a biogas fuel cell and raising the operating temperature of the facility. Jo Harris, sustainable construction group manager at BSRIA, said, ‘The tool will be extremely useful for industry and our members. It allows data centre operators to replicate the advantages and expenses of on site and grid renewables, predicts productivity gains from technologies such as free cooling and the finer aspects of workload management can also be calculated.’ The tool covers the EU and there is potential for it to be extended to North America and Asia in the future. Data Centre News is a new digital news based title for data centre managers and IT professionals. In this rapidly evolving sector it’s vital that data centre professionals keep on top of the latest news, trends and solutions – from cooling to cloud computing, security to storage, DCN covers every aspect of the modern data centre. The next issue will include a special feature examining Big Data and Internet of Things in the data centre environment. The issue will also feature the latest news stories from around the world plus high profile case studies and comment from industry experts. REGISTER NOW to have your free edition delivered straight to your inbox each month or read the latest edition online now at www.datacentrenews.co.uk DCN is available to read online at www.datacentrenews.co.uk 07-8 Industry News.indd 8 03/10/2016 13:58