Schneider Electric’s ‘Game-Changing’ Edge Computing Partner Opportunities
Schneider Electric’s new Smart-UPS Ultra is opening doors for channel partners around power management and infrastructure at the edge.
Schneider Electric is driving “game-changing” opportunities in the growing edge computing market to enable channel partners to add critical power services at the edge thanks to new purpose-built hardware and software.
Gail Fredrickson, director of channel marketing and strategy execution at Schneider Electric, told hundreds of MSPs attending XChange+ 2021 today that there’s several “game-changing” edge opportunities that partners of all shapes and sizes need to capitalize on to drive sales growth.
“As these edge deployments get built out and they’re geographically dispersed with less IT staff on site, we know you’re going to need to supply more core hardware gear for customers to make sure they have the resiliency they need at the edge,” said Fredrickson (pictured above).
[Related: Schneider Electric’s New Edge Partner Program: 5 Things To Know]
Schneider Electric recently launched its new Smart-UPS Ultra, dubbed as an industry first in 1U 3W UPS’s, which is 50 percent smaller and lighter than the company’s traditional batteries, meaning there’s more rack space inside edge environments for networking gear. Smart-UPS Ultra also has three-times the battery life of its traditional VRLA batteries thanks to lithium-ion innovation, has two-times faster recharge power, and utilizes Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure remote monitoring, management and servicing offering that channel partners can leverage.
“These innovations equate to about a 15 percent cost of ownership savings for your customer over the lifespan, but more importantly, I say this UPS is tomorrow-ready,” said Fredrickson.
Brian Miller, CEO of FusionTek, a Kirkland, Wash.-based solution provider which partners with Schneider Electric, said Schneider’s new edge power infrastructure tied to its EcoStruxure software is a key differentiator in the edge computing market.
“The biggest thing we like about Schneider is their ability for their edge devices to report back to a central management portal or have that visibility associated with it. As our organization continues to grow and our clients spread out more and more to different locations, being able to monitor the health and the reliability of that equipment, to be able to see what its doing, and also the lifecycle management of it – that’s a huge advantage,” said FusionTek’s CEO.
Miller said Schneider Electric’s remote monitoring, management and servicing offerings is the future of power management for edge computing environments.
“Its not like we’re putting a backup battery in somewhere and suddenly its there and we don’t touch it or look at it for a couple of years,” said Miller. “We’re able to measure that in real time – both the health of it and then also manage it from a lifecycle perspective because, quite frankly, if there’s no power, nothing else is going to work in our customers environment, regardless whether of its on-premise or in the cloud or wherever.”
Additionally, FusionTek’s CEO said MSPs gain knowledge if something does fail or goes down. “So I now have better visibility into why it went down, which allows me to be more efficient, manage our labor better, and make sure we’re directing the right resources to the right place,” he said. “It’s a total different issue if we know if it’s a power-related issue versus an infrastructure or networking equipment related issue.”
Schneider Electric’s Fredrickson cited a report by IT research firm Gartner that predicts that by 2025, 75 percent of enterprise data will be processed and created at the edge.
“As this shift continues and it grows –demand from our customers will go from the data center to the edge,” said Fredrickson. “We will be with you to innovate today and continue to grow with you for tomorrow to build that resilient edge network. We know the future is a resilient and sustainable one.”
XChange+ 2021 is taking place in San Antonio this week hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.