Supporting research, education and sustainability

HKUST is a prestigious international research university for the advancement of science, technology, business and humanities.

“At HKUST, technology, education and research go hand in hand. With the advent of innovative technology, IT plays an instrumental role for enhanced learning and teaching performance in every part of the university campus. We, as the Information Technology Services Centre, have an increasingly important responsibility in managing the university’s IT to provide an optimal research and education environment for faculty members and students,” said Dr. Samuel Kwan, Director, Information Technology Services Centre, HKUST.

“Building a new, sophisticated and well-planned data centre to replace our previous 30-year-old facility, with its rather obsolete technologies, is vital to support our rapid IT growth and process the increasing demand from research for High-performance Computing (HPC), whilst addressing the energy paradox and sustainability commitments, in order to gain and maintain a competitive edge over other world-class universities.”

As a result, HKUST decided to plan holistically and deploy an integrated data centre solution to provide effective operation and management, ensuring high reliability and 24/7 availability, as well as full visibility for day-to-day monitoring of all systems and processes.

“To best address HKUST data centre’s current and future demands for scalability and sustainability, Schneider Electric has taken a consultancy approach and offered a comprehensive turnkey solution with an integration of its best-of-breed hardware, software and services. Our one-stop-shop, end-to-end data centre solution encompasses design, site assessment, layout development, project planning and execution, construction, testing and commissioning, and ongoing service operation, accommodating the rapid IT growth of HKUST,” said Mr. Jonathan Chiu, Hong Kong President, Schneider Electric

EcoStruxure™ for Data Centre
“We proposed EcoStruxure™ for Data Centre, an open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architecture and platform. It leverages advancements in IoT, mobility, sensing, cloud and big data analytics technologies to bring unprecedented insight into data centre operations through our connected products, edge control, apps, analytics and services,” added Jonathan.

The IoT-enabled Connected Products deployed range from 3-phase critical equipment that includes the GalaxyVX Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), Remote Power Management Module (RPMM), Upsilon Static Transfer switch for critical power distribution, Uniflair Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC), InRow cooling solution, Low Voltage Switch Boards and PowerLogic Energy Meters, to white space solutions that include NetShelter SX Rack, rack Power Distribution Units (rPDU) and EcoAisle intelligent air containment systems.

“Schneider Electric’s Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software provides us with a single fully-integrated platform for real-time monitoring, which can help enhance data visualization while optimizing operating efficiency and ease-of-management for our data centre,” said Dr. Kwan.

New high-density green data centre with expected results in:
• Enhanced scalability, efficiency, reliability and availability
• Energy saving with PUE rating more than doubled
• Real-time monitoring through a single fully-integrated platform for enhanced data visualization while optimizing operating efficiency and ease-of-management