IBM unveils movable data centres
IBM Ghana has held a seminar in Accra for businesses to utilise Prefabricated Modular Data Centres (PMDC) to enable them quickly and efficiently deploy and relocate data centres to support their operations.
The PMDC is part of the IBM Data Centre Family, which offers comprehensive data centre assessment, design, build, and relocation services to meet the unique needs of organizations.
Mark Hare, the Services Leader, Workplace Services and Data Centre Service of IBM in-charge of Middle East and Africa, explained that the PMDC is part of the evolution of data centres built in a factory environment and customised to meet customers’ data requirements.
“It is then brought to the site and quickly deployed, integrated and installed within a few days. So all the technical works get done within a controlled area, and we can bring it to site and install very quickly.
“So for organisations with limited office floor space, the PMDC will help them to get a fully functional data centre in, for instance, their car park. Also, for organisations operating in industries like construction, telecom, mining and oil firms, it helps them to deploy IT assets quickly and move it to another area on completion of their project,” he said.
The PMDC, which costs at least US$200,000 depending on the data needs of the organisation, is usually housed in a 20- or 40-foot shipping container and placed on a truck to offer container solutions to the data needs of businesses.
The facility can be deployed almost anywhere and be maintained without need to expose the PMDC's internal IT systems to damaging external conditions.
Mr. Hare said the capabilities of PMDCs to help organisations relocate data centres, undertake rapid data centre expansion, and also shore-up their data recovery programmes’ position businesses to respond to their ever-changing data processing demand.
“It’s a nice and easy way to get data centres rapidly placed and up to speed,” he added.
He said the PMDC has been designed to suit the data needs of a wide range of industries that require quick local deployment of additional data centre environments to more effectively meet increasing data-processing needs.
However, the seminar showed that IBM is pitching the PMDC to local mining companies and oil and gas firms and other enterprises engaged in outdoor activities, due to the facility’s ability to withstand harsh environments.
Mr. Hare noted that the seminar has offered IBM a chance to identify and understand the needs and challenges of businesses in order to proffer the required solutions.
“We are seeing a lot of interest from customers. We also like to engage with customers as well as give them our view of the technology and the roadmaps, so it is important to meet people and understand their business challenges to make sure that the products that we offer address their challenges,” he said.
B&FT