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There is never a shortage of change in the data center industry. Whether that means dealing with rising densities, new cooling technologies, shifting budgets, or evolving environmental policies, data center professionals always seem to have a “new normal” to come to terms with.

That begs the question, in an ever-changing industry, how can you stay one step ahead?

For one of the world’s largest aerospace companies, they found that the rule-of-thumb tactics they had come to rely on weren't working as effectively anymore.

Initially, they needed a solution to help them simplify new IT equipment implementation. They were using a manual, trial-and-error approach to IT installation planning that was time consuming. When they eventually experienced a loss of some IT equipment and an outage to IT operations, they knew it was time to try something new.

This aerospace enterprise began using Future Facilities’ 6Sigma Digital Twin solution to perform engineering simulations. Specifically, they used the 6Sigma Digital Twin to operate data center performance modeling and asset management. They built and calibrated models to form a digital twin of their data centers, enabling them to see what would happen in different scenarios by testing them in a virtual model.

Simulate the Impact of New IT Equipment

Using the 6Sigma Digital Twin’s built-in libraries of cabinets and IT devices, the aerospace enterprise was able to quickly amend models and simulate the impact of new IT equipment deployment.

They were able to look at all the capacities of cooling and power. They began to experiment in their 6Sigma Digital Twin models to search for greater efficiency gains and understand the impact of adding more capacity.

The 6Sigma Digital Twin enabled the company to be more proactive and make decisions using science rather than rules of thumb or guesswork. As a result, there was a reduction in power usage and an increase in data center efficiency.

Simulation-Based Methodology for IT Installation Planning

This simulation-based methodology for IT installation planning enabled the data center management team to adjust environments for optimal performance before installation.

The company has quantified that it has been able to reduce power consumption and increase performance by 30-40% depending on the data center in question.

This large enterprise now operates its data centers more reliably and sustainably, reducing power consumption without increasing environmental compliance risk.

To summarize, one of the world’s largest aerospace enterprises uses the 6Sigma Digital Twin to:

• Model the impact of new IT equipment in a virtual environment, adjusting to reduce risk 
• Experiment in a virtual environment to see how to maximize efficiency without impacting compliance
• Manage IT assets and perform monthly IT audits more efficiently.

This has resulted in:

• A reduction of power consumption and increase in performance of 30-40%
• Increased efficiency in cooling without impacting compliance
• A decrease in one data center’s PUE from 4 to 1.6.

The 6Sigma Digital Twin provides powerful visibility into key performance metrics, which empowers data center continuity and reliability. Learn more about how other large enterprises are maximizing data center performance here.