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APC recently implemented an energy-efficient UPS
system solution for the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde in
support of the college's bid to provide continuous excellent service
to its faculties and students. The UPS system solution also
aims to protect data in case of any power interruptions.
De La Salle-College of Saint
Benilde (DLS-CSB) is one of the top educational institutions in the
Philippines offering a range of degree programs in deaf education
and applied studies; design and arts; hotel, restaurant and
institution management; management and information technology; and
professional and continuing education.
"It's great a privilege and
an honor for APC to have a prestigious partner in the education
industry such as De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde," said
Didier Chalumeau, APC Country Manager. "Many of the country's
successful leaders and businessmen graduated from this college and
we support this pursuit by providing the best solution to continue
to educate the next generation and the new breed of leaders."
Efficient technology =
Effective school systems
Many of the school's learning
resources and student support systems and services are largely
dependent on technology for ease and speed of use.
For instance, the Br. Fidelis
Leddy Learning Resource Center (LRC) is a repository of multimedia
resources—from conventional printed materials, to other forms of
storage media, such as audio/video tapes, transparencies, compact
discs, and electronic/online databases. This resource provides
students as well as other members Benildean community the
informational, instructional, and recreational resources.
The DLS-CSB also subscribes to an
online electronic journal called ProQuest 5000 International. This
e-journal has more than 29 databases containing almost 16,000
journals, and is accessed through computers in the LRC offices
inside the College and in student's homes. Other school databases
are also accessed by current students and employees through the
College Intranet.
Because of this dependence on
technology, the school cannot afford to suffer any downtime.
"Downtime in any business
component, especially in IT infrastructure and applications can be
devastating to a company's bottom line," said Emerson E. Siscar,
head of External Operations Group at the DLS-CSB. "In the
school, the opportunity for learning is as valuable as revenue.
Learning operations should be available when needed.
Siscar added that "aside
from learning operations, our administrative systems, like the
online enrollment system, is also technology dependent. We cannot
function efficiently without an efficient data center
services."
The school also operates an IT
center which offers various technology services such as wired and
wireless internet access at home and in school. Under this service,
students, faculty and other employees are given their own domain and
email account, and enjoy miscellaneous services such as laptop
lending, printing, scanning, CD-writing and many other IT services.
"Our data center is an
integral part of the college and plays a vital role in the business
strategy," said Siscar. "We capitalize on technology to
provide the school with a competitive edge over other tertiary
education providers. The data center's availability and technology
sets allow the college to support various learning methodologies and
research capabilities to keep the college on top."
Eliminating DC downtime
Because of this enormous
challenge and in the bid to maintain its services among the best,
DLS-CSB was faced with the challenge of providing continuous power
supply, cooling and data security to the technology users.
In the past, these key technology
concerns were not properly addressed. Siscar reports that the data
center relied on individual online UPS units for each machine,
resulting in high component failure. Cooling and physical were
concerns as well.
The network administration team
was well aware that if their system fails, business will definitely
come to a halt, most specially at critical times such as enrollment,
paper-submission deadlines, or during examinations. "The
loss may not just be in the monetary aspect but will also hurt the
prestige of the school. We are known for our quality and
advanced facilities so certainly we cannot afford to have system
downtime."
The school needed to choose the
best technology provider to stay competitive and maintain its
stature. This critical need pushed DLS-CSB to look into
American Power Conversion's (APC) power, cooling and security
solutions. DLS-CSB requested APC to assess the school's
requirements. Key concerns identified were more on business
continuity, a solution that required reliable and consistent-back-up
power and a consolidation UPS solution.
DLS-CSB believes that APC helped
the school save time and resources by eliminating data center (DC)
downtime and eliminating component failure due to power concerns.
For this, APC offered the
InfrastruXure (ISX) system, designed specifically for high-density
applications. This system, which integrates power, cooling,
management and services in a rack-optimized architecture, addresses
NCPI challenges such as hot spots, cooling problems, unknown data
center capabilities, requirements for oversized NCPI or special
environments, and the need to slow technology adoption because of
deployment challenges.
"ISX provided the school
with intelligent software that commands our machines to
automatically shutdown when necessary. It also resolved our
immediate issue of consolidating and stabilizing the power
requirement. Now, we simply plug our machines into the DC.
Ensure peace of mind
This is not the first time that
DLS-CSB has deployed APC's solutions. In the past, the school had
already implemented the Symmetra solution. However, its speedy
growth from a community school to a full-pledged college, as well as
the rapidly changing technology needs, called for more drastic
changes.
"We definitely needed the
Symmetra then. But now, we find that the ISX solution addresses our
consolidation needs and provides reliable power. The ISX is so
scalable that it allows us to maximize our investments because we
can still rely on it while our needs expand," Siscar added.
Moving forward, plans are to grow
the data center further as technology changes. "The growth of
space, applications, power, and services in the data center will
continue to evolve. Since the expansion of the institution will
require IT to provide better services, the data center will be a
primary evolution integrator for the School."
The school is also quite
impressed with the APC team who are willing to go beyond the call of
duty just to ensure everything is running smoothly. "People
worked around 1 a.m. to fix and have everything back to normal. They
never leave the site without confirming that the system is
okay".
"It's quite an investment,
but APC has given us peace of mind."
-- Tech Times Online
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