Schneider Electric has revealed its plan to partner with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver a pre-configured architecture, described as “a micro-modular data centre for distributed IT and edge computing.”
In an interview with Data Center Knowledge, Steven Carlini, Senior director for data centre global solutions, Schneider Electric said: “HPE is announcing what they’re calling Micro data centre. They’re partnering with us for delivering this solution.
According to Data Center Knowledge, the announcement was made during the data centre infrastructure and operations managements conference in Las Vegas early this week.
Carlini added: “What’s less interesting to the IT guys is physical infrastructure… Schneider is partnering with the IT OEMs, helping them deliver these smaller solutions easily and cost-effectively to the customers- what we call, drop-in-place micro data centres.”
HPE’s role in the partnership is to provide the base server hardware, to come from its Converged System product line, which will include its Hyper Converged servers and its new Edgeline servers.
Carlini also mentioned that the modular unit has the ability to be assembled and deployed within a few days, using HPE’s servers and management software ready-to-go, all in configuration with operations management tools for Schneider’s drop-in-place infrastructure.
A statement from HPE read: “This hybrid IT solution integrates data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) with HPE OneView IT infrastructure management to provide a single management interface with a converged view of IT and data centre facility from a customer’s centralised operation.
“In addition to pre-configured architectures, the HPE Micro Data centre also supports custom configurations to the customers’ business requirements.”
When asked whether Schneider Electric had the expectation for the drop-in-place modules to be customised for Internet of Things related applications, Data Center Knowledge was told that certain models will be equipped with gateways ready to be bridged with IoT sensors.
Carlini said: “There are different packages from the vendors that are IoT specific, that we will put into the micro data centres.”
