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CASE STUDY
24 / 7 monitoring
By Schneider Electric www . schneider-electric . co . uk
Advanced insights and remote monitoring of the data centre delivered directly to the users ’ mobile phone
Kelvin Hughes is a developer and manufacturer of navigational and radar systems for civil and military applications with a manufacturing history dating back over 250 years . The company , which was acquired by German defence contractor Hensoldt in 2017 is based in Enfield in Essex , where its corporate data centre has been located for the past five years .
The data centre and its IT equipment host all of the company ’ s critical applications including its ERP system , development servers and data storage systems . As a Ministry of Defence ( MOD ) subcontractor , the company has a vital requirement for both physical and cyber security , in addition to strict access control . Business continuity and disaster recovery are also important aspects of the facility ’ s day-today operation .
“ If the data centre fails , the company essentially stops trading ,” said Ian Mowbray , Infrastructure Services Manager at Kelvin Hughes . “ Reliability , both in terms of the data centre hardware , the IT equipment and the services supplied by Kelvin Hughes is an issue on which the company cannot afford to compromise .”
From inception to delivery The original data centre , which was designed and built with the help of Schneider Electric , consists of 12 racks containing a mixture of physical and virtual servers and data storage arrays . However , only eight of the racks are in use today by Kelvin Hughes , with the additional four populated by another company who is collocated on the business premises .
There is scope for considerable expansion in the data centre , which would bring with it a need for additional monitoring and management of the facilities to ensure that it continues to operate effectively . Mowbray ’ s team comprises six people who are responsible not just for the IT equipment and helpdesk , but also for the entire building management including environmental control , access control and maintaining the water supply for the data centre cooling equipment .
Advanced insights In recent months , Kelvin Hughes has deployed Schneider Electric ’ s StruxureOn service , to help maintain its data centre operations whilst providing remote management and monitoring . Ian Mowbray explains that when built , the facility featured a contained hot aisle together with close coupled cooling equipment .
“ Schneider Electric ’ s InfraStruxure with Hot Aisle Containment Solution ( HACS ) has greatly helped the efficiency and effectiveness of our data centre cooling system ,” said Mowbray . “ A number of the servers have been virtualised making the requirement for physical servers unpredictable . The HACS enables a high-density load and the flexibility to reliably accommodate , power and cool an additional number of IT devices .”
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