APC and TAC Management Platforms to Integrate With IBM Software to Provide Customers With Energy Efficient Data Center Solutions

Market Wire, June, 2008

APC, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services, today announced plans to integrate APC and TAC software management platforms with IBM Tivoli Monitoring energy management software. APC and TAC, part of global energy management specialist Schneider Electric, offer innovative physical infrastructure and building management systems, respectively, to customers worldwide. The integration, currently in development, will allow APC's InfraStruXure Central® management platform, TAC's building management system and IBM Tivoli Monitoring software to share key data points including alarm notifications, historical data and asset tracking information. The combined solution will deliver the visibility, control and automation needed for a more efficient enterprise by enabling optimization of data center physical infrastructure and building systems while maintaining IT service levels.

By integrating InfraStruXure Central and TAC with IBM Tivoli Monitoring software, administrators will be able to view, correlate and profile the dependencies of business process and IT assets to the underlying physical infrastructure. The result will help monitor and manage efforts to reduce risk, raise data center system availability levels and increase energy efficiency.

"Once we complete the integration with the IBM Tivoli Monitoring software, IT administrators will have the ability to make informed decisions about critical business processes, their physical infrastructure and building management systems and how to efficiently deploy their infrastructure," says John DiPippo, senior vice president, APC Data Center Solutions, Software and Services.

"For example, a user may choose to move business critical applications to an alternate rack, row or even data center in the event of loss of redundancy in cooling, or may choose to leave a less critical application running in the higher risk environment. Customers soon will have the ability to not only determine optimum location (physical or virtual) of IT assets, but also adapt their application usage based on historical and real-time information regarding energy use and power and cooling availability."

"We are delighted to have APC and TAC partner in IBM's efforts to help customers become more energy efficient," said Stuart McIrvine, director, Emerging Markets, IBM Tivoli. "Working together, we have a comprehensive suite of management capabilities that will provide clients with the proper tools to proactively manage and control their power consumption and energy costs, but not at the expense of critical business services."

APC's suite of innovative enterprise software solutions enable the efficient management of company-wide IT physical infrastructure including floor space, power, cooling, cabling and threat protection. APC InfraStruXure Central lowers support costs and prevents downtime through rapid problem resolution of physical and environmental issues.

"InfraStruXure Central gives us a great level of visibility and control," said David Shaw, executive director of data center services at Sisters of Mercy Health System in St. Louis, Mo. "Information systems infrastructure is a critical element in our ability to deliver the highest quality health care. InfraStruXure Central provides both the monitoring tool and the management reporting required to maintain the infrastructure foundation of our environment. This allows us to proactively resolve areas of risk or address interruptions before they become service outages. By sharing alerts and notifications with the IBM Tivoli Monitoring software, we will be able to further understand the mission-critical applications that may be affected by problematic events and, in turn, determine the best course of action to take to eliminate downtime."

TAC Building Management Systems today provide integration with IBM Tivoli Monitoring software via SNMP, thus supporting timely exchange of critical process data and alarms. Through this integration, administrators will have visibility and control of the facilities systems that manage electrical distribution, heating, ventilation, lighting, air conditioning as well as security. This will provide a complete dashboard for energy management that can report on when and what is consuming the most energy. Administrators will be able to enable manual or automated facility controls based on need, power consumption and cost. Furthermore, the integration will centralize security functionality including access control, intrusion detection, event notifications and digital video management.

"TAC is very excited about working with APC and IBM Tivoli to deliver a comprehensive energy management and monitoring solution that can help customers increase energy efficiency across data centers and building systems," said Rodman St. Amand, TAC's director of strategic accounts. "The new solution expands on our level of alarm notification and redundancy."

The combined APC, TAC and IBM Tivoli Monitoring solution will allow a user to: