Airedale has announced the launch of its new IoT-enabled software framework, IQity, aiming to provide a blueprint for intelligent data centre cooling at a product, system and site level – to safeguard uptime and sustainability.
IQity serves as a digital framework, transforming individual plant items like chillers and precision coolers into intelligent systems, that flex with their environment and work as one to ensure critical cooling delivers high availability at the lowest cost. IQity also contains powerful site optimisation tools that break the boundaries of what traditional cooling companies offer and give holistic insights to whole facilities and entire fleets.
Critical systems like cooling are extremely complex. Software has long been mooted as a way to improve business operations, but field experience is crucial. Airedale is a data centre expert with 45 years of IT cooling experience. IQity is the culmination of this experience, a software framework and digital toolkit developed specifically for this most demanding of industries, tested and validated in the field and developed with efficiency and uptime as its core deliverables. IQity takes Airedale’s Helix intelligent unit controls, the ACIS BMS (Building Management System) and site-specific system integration work, offering it as a digital toolbox to its data centre clients.
IQity manages normal operations all the time, but when things go wrong it steps in, automatically restoring critical cooling to servers and running unique cause diagnostics to give peace of mind to operators. With the ability to monitor operational patterns at pace and to a level of detail beyond the human eye, tools within the framework can identify the source of likely breakdowns before they occur. Systems are automatically restored quickly and safely following power interruptions and the root cause of failure events is analysed with an accurate sequence of event mapping, within milliseconds, making facilities more resilient, efficient and sustainable on a 24/7 basis.
IQity has been developed with a “defence-in-depth” mindset when it comes to cybersecurity, recognising that data centres are critical pieces of national infrastructure. All products, systems and software platforms are protected by robust security protocols and trusted by many data centre operators already.
Reece Thomas, Control Product Manager at Airedale said, “At Airedale, our software and hardware divisions exist under one roof, so we talk to each other and ensure our products do too. We feel that because we are so aligned and because we develop applications on-site rather than in isolated labs, we do this sort of thing better than anyone else. Being completely connected, from a product, site and system level, means we can offer added value to our clients, and more assured return on investment.”
