GE has been involved in the data center industry since its inception. It knows as much about running power into factilities as any company in the business. But GE has recently turned its gaze on the whole data center stack, from ‘the grid to the sensor’.

The company decided to take 30 products from 18 different divisions and aggregate them under one brand – GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms – and bring it to the data center market under the leadership of director Mark Moyer.

The genesis of GE’s data center solutions lies close to home. A company operating at the scale of GE has plenty of experience running data centers and the initial goal was to improve its own data center operations. Cutting power and water use at its Cincinnati, Ohio data center was among the first tasks of improving efficiency to be tackled. (see below)

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The Proficy software solution is based on Proficy HMI/SCADA –CIMPLICITY. This was widely used at GE’s Cincinnati data center. CIMPLICITY HMI is a client/server based visualisation and control solution that provides process visualisation, data acquisition and supervisory control over manufacturing environments. The result is a data foundation for digitised production management. With CIMPLICITY HMI, operators and engineers have the power and security to monitor and control every aspect of the manufacturing environment, equipment and resources. CIMPLICITY is packaged within the Power Monitoring and Control System (PMCS) interfaces with the GE Digital Energy Power Quality Metering solution, ensuring mission-critical facility equipment and processes are protected and not interrupted by power system anomalies. Other GE companies also use GE Fanuc hardware and software inside their own solutions, making the overall data center solution simplified and seamless. On the hardware side, the PACSystems RX7i plays a critical role. Part of the PAC Systems family of solutions designed with power, memory and bandwidth to handle mid-to high-end applications, this hardware platform grew from GE Fanuc’s Series 90 systems. It is a standards based product that supports many third-party and customer developed boards and can be easily and quickly upgraded for improved performance. For GIS, the GE Fanuc controllers are the interface to the pumps, tank levels, heaters and valves of the data center cooling system.

“Much of what we did was functionality based, but we weren’t organised to deliver benefits holistically,” says Moyer.

“GE is a number of companies that have come together over time. And in GE there have been a number of operational initiatives – to go green, to take cost out – and in some of the specific businesses we realised that we had that ability. We had that capability to engage at a single point of focus, so we aligned it a bit more formally to take it to market. Often the questions are around the technologies but really, a large part of the activity organisationally, is that we have focused on bringing all of the capabilities together,” he says.

“It is relative to what the customer desires. It is improvement focused both short term and in terms of sustainability. We are making sure that we combine different attributes, such as power reductions and water reductions, all the different elements of compliance.

“I have spent a lot of time in the mechnical and electrical space and in the IT space, they have ambitions but they are not always the same. All our activities start to combine logically for improvements – something that not all companies will grasp equally. But change is coming. There is a lot of synergy between siloed operations and this includes IT improvements and facilities improvements. It was a great time to do things (within GE) and as we have the similar disparate systems that others have, this gives us a solid proof point.

“The ability to bring things together is what customers want – that is the key to this environment. What are the value-based steps to be taken?”

This leads neatly into explaining why GE has decided that now is the time to be in the end-to-end data center business.

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms   Information & Insight Environmental Improvement  Reduced carbon emissions  Reduced water consumption & waste  Increased energy efficiency Regulatory compliance SUPERVISORY CONTROL GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms →Control & Software Platform →Solution Intergration SECURITY GE SECURITY →Access Control • Fire & Life Saftey FACILITIES/ COST GE Commercial Finance →Equipment (Leases & Loans) →Real Estate (Leases &Loans) →Construction Finance • Senior Debt Facilities • Asset Based • Cash Flow GE Lighting Lamps & Ballasts →Lighting & Control ELECTRICAL GE Electrical Distribution →MV & LV Switchgear →Switchboards →Transformers →Busway →Variable Frequency Drives GE Energy →Installation, Start-up & Comissionsing →Training →After Sales Service • Solar • Co-generation GE Digital Energy & Multilin →Power Management →Power Quality →PMCS →Protective Relays CHILLED WATER GE Water →Make-up Water →Chemical Treatment UPS/STANDBY GE Power Quality →UPS • Battery →Paralelling Switchgear →TVSS ATS

Moyer concedes that, “What are you doing in this business?” is often an initial reaction, but when customers see what the company has done for itself, he says they then grasp what is meant by the broad approach.

He says the belief that GE does not have an installed base is false. “That’s not the case, but we haven’t marketed it.”

As for the changes, it is obvious that Moyer is looking at the big shifts in the market. He cites Cisco, IBM and HP and says there is more synergy than not with these companies. Looking at cooling and mechancial load, he says something GE is seeing is people bringing a broader set of offerings to market. “Different sets of competition and different sets of synergy,” he says.

“Economic conditions force cross-leverage. How quickly do companies want to operate? In general terms, we can go from everything that a community needs down to a sensor. Within that large scope there are partnerships for some specific elements, such as heating and cooling – it makes sense to partner,” says Moyer.

“Our approach is open and connected – we’re not going to build a chiller system – but we will partner and from that we will build a controlled system. There is a great opportunity to move things to a different level.

“This is a time when end users are embracing a single point of contact for a holistic approach. But what does holistic mean? Cut $1.00-worth of power and use an extra $1.50-worth of water? It is the ability to drive a collective efficiency.

“The data center market, because of its growth expectations and its cost compliance, is a lightning rod for things that are applicable. Customers want to improve processes and a lot of things that are technically connected. The difference between success and failure is quicker time to value at less cost. But what is the data behind it? That is the difference between different people trying to complete something successfully. It is a challenge. The difference is saying it and doing it and having the proof points. Efficiency is one of the things that is interesting. We have a history in manufacturing efficiency and a lot of leverage in that expertise,” Moyer says.

“In GE there are different activities that have similarities in manufacturing standards and we continue to be involved in terms of product manufacturing and standards,” he adds.

Moyer is clear that the data center business is lagging behind other industries. Is the data center industry behind the curve? If this is the case, where were the pressures? In manufacturing – people needed to get more costs out and constantly improve or they wouldn’t be in business.

What does the market need?
There needs to be a holistic approach that addresses the CFO, the COO and the CIO – all of which are trying to drive out cost and trying to get more insight on a day-to-day basis.

The subject of insight is an area of frustration for Moyer. “Insight is not day-to-day reporting; it is frustrating, people have presented software and reporting as insight and it isn’t.

“Companies want better products that address the data center needs. By 2012, just having best and most efficient sub systems is a basic requirement. They have to have something they can do to get there and to operate it with leaner IT architectures.

“I want someone who isn’t going to say I don’t want this piece and that piece. I need help to get there and a leaner architectural infrastructure which will give me more capacity,” he says.

Opportunities to partner
“In terms of engagement, GE sees a number of options, depending on the customer’s current position, that will present different opportunities. It could take three to five years and there are always a combination of options based around the actions that will be taken. It could be variable frequency drives or it could be the refresh of a cooling tower, or replacing all the PDUs on the way to driving out the costs. For example, making decisions on power, what if we need more? What if we need more capacity? What if it is not available where we are? There are always multiple pressures and different elements to any stimulus and helping people bring it all together with the business operation is what is needed.

“They will have business data to make decisons, but instead of stitching together a number of hypotheses around what trouble they are in, we make sense of the data. And we can prove it,” Moyer says.