The better part of American Power Conversion’s 25-year history can be summed up like this: Little-known electronics firm in West Kingston works hard and grows into the leading producer of uninterruptible power supplies for computers.
Now, however, APC is writing a new chapter. The company wants to become the best builder of computer data centers. And on June 23 and 24, APC invited journalists from around the world to its $2 billion headquarters see how that new chapter is taking shape.
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APC’s 13th annual editors’ conference drew 47 journalists from as far away as Argentina and South Africa to see and hear about the company’s newest products and its plans for the future.
Among the speakers was Aaron Davis, APC’s vice president of marketing and communications, who gave an overview of the work the company is doing to address energy and temperature issues in data centers.
“I think the perception that exists with APC is that we are only a small component manufacturer, because millions and millions of people every Saturday afternoon see our [power supply] products in places like Best Buy,” he said in an interview.
“But the reality,” Davis added, “is that we now make the world’s largest UPS (uninterruptible power supply). The critical infrastructure of the Internet – and basically everything that is driving the trends like BlackBerrys and mobile phones – its backbone is power and cooling, and we are committed to becoming a leader in that space.”
APC is focusing on cooling in particular, Davis said in his presentation, “because cooling, from the 1950s to about two years ago, was just about ‘How do I make this room cool?’ ”
Yet data centers today are filled with computer racks containing hardware that produces varying amounts of heat, Davis said. Therefore, he said, APC has focused on making cooling systems that regulate not only the temperature in the entire data center but also in each rack.
Only 30 percent of energy flowing into data centers actually powers equipment, he noted. Most of the balance is lost as heat.
Also, customizing the cooling systems is a larger concern due to rising electricity costs.
Davis cited predictions from Google engineers that by 2009, the annual cost of powering a data center will be three times higher than the cost of the equipment.
Meanwhile, consumers are buying up Web-enabled devices that have dramatically increased the amount of energy required to power the computers supporting the Internet. In the last three months, Davis said, more than 77 million personal digital assistants have been sold.
APC aims to standardize the way data centers are built, enabling companies to erect the facilities before considering what types of servers to buy.
The company also designs data centers to use about 10 percent less energy than existing centers, which could save customers millions of dollars. “Our goal is to save the world $100 billion,” Davis said. For example, the company recently designed and installed the data center at the Frankfurt airport in Germany.
Large systems, including data center products, accounted for only a fraction of APC’s revenue last year, $429 million, compared with $1.5 billion from small systems. But large-system revenue grew 33 percent last year, while small systems grew just 7 percent, according to APC’s annual report. By expanding into large systems, the company’s potential market has gone from $3 billion to about $13.5 billion, according to Davis.
Though APC has the largest market share for UPS systems in the world, data center products sold under its InfraStruXure brand comprise its fastest-growing line of business.
The company saw revenue from InfraStruXure – a line that includes products that provide cooling, continuous power supply, racks and security for data centers – jump 60 percent in 2005, said Debbie Hancock, director of investor relations at APC, during a presentation.
Russell Senesac, manager of InfraStruXure Systems, told journalists that the company wants to make buying or replacing a data center more like purchasing a car than a home. When you buy a car, all its components are designed to work together, he noted, whereas in a home, the various parts require expertise from several tradesmen working separately.
Instead of waiting several months for a data center to be built, Senesac said, some customers want their data center delivered in one day. “So we actually went out and built a data center on a tractor-trailer that you can actually deliver to the customer the next day to get them up and running,” he said.
In fact, the data center on wheels was in the parking lot at APC during the event. The “Data Center on Demand” consists of an 18-wheeler and a trailer that holds 10 racks of computer equipment. It is engineered to provide either a temporary or mobile data center to customers, said Bob Wolfgang, an APC engineer, during a tour of the unit. APC is getting ready to deploy the units to companies across the country.
