Bryant adopts IBM-APC ‘green’ data center

SMITHFIELD – Armonk, N.Y-based IBM (NYSE: IBM) has teamed up with West Greenwich-based APC to create an energy-efficient data center at Bryant University, the three parties announced.
The pre-engineered IBM Scalable Modular Data Center will help Bryant support its growing student body while also improving energy efficiency, they said. It pairs IBM Global Services capabilities with APC’s InfraStruXure data-center design, which integrates power, cooling, rack management and security.
Bryant also has replaced its previous Sun Microsystems hardware with IBM Power processor-based BladeCenter servers, running Linux and IBM virtualization software, in what the companies said was another energy-saving move.
The techologies are part of Project Big Green, the new data-center energy efficiency program from “Big Blue” IBM.
Bryant prides itself on being wired with “one port per pillow” in every dorm room, the announcement noted. But its three data centers had failed to keep pace with Bryant’s rapid growth and were not able to handle enterprise information technology for either communication or computing.
“In the past 10 years, Bryant University has added 144,000 square feet of new facilities and has experienced a 300-percent rise in applications,” said Arthur Gloster, the university’s chief information officer. “We were not properly set up to handle this growth and it was time for Bryant University to make a cost-saving and energy efficient change.”
“Bryant University is the beneficiary of what happens when two leading companies combine to create the best of both worlds,” said Dave Johnson, senior vice president and chief sales officer at APC-MGE, a division of Rueil-Malmaison, France-based Schneider Electric (Paris: SU.PA). “”IBM and APC have created an energy efficient solution that addresses Bryant’s current and future IT needs.”
To learn more, visit www.apc-mge.com, www.ibm.com or www.bryant.edu.