The new BAS solution will be implemented in 13 Digital Realty Trust properties this year, and the rollout will continue to the remainder of the company's 49 Internet gateways and data center facilities in North America and Europe in the future. This building automation system will also be implemented as necessary in future properties that are acquired by Digital Realty Trust, providing a unified building automation environment across all properties worldwide.
"We have worked closely with TAC to design a customized BAS solution that provides tenants with significant enhancements in terms of energy efficiency, advanced environmental controls, ease of use, and proactive building management capabilities. No other company in the industry is utilizing a building automation system this advanced, and it expands the growing number of benefits and amenities that tenants can get only from Digital Realty Trust," said Michael F. Foust, chief executive officer of Digital Realty Trust.
The BAS will allow tenants in Digital Realty Trust properties to remotely monitor conditions in their data center as well as actively manage temperature, humidity, access control, lighting, equipment alarms, maintenance orders, and security. TAC's Continuum BAS allows tenants to manage data center implementations across multiple properties on a single dashboard, and the system's reporting tools are customizable to deliver alarms and status reports in a number of ways to meet customer needs: via e-mail, pager, cell phone, and/or via IP to workstation or Web page.
"Digital Realty Trust came to us with a simple goal: to implement a new building automation system that fully meets the needs of tenants in terms of advanced technology, integration across properties, flexibility, and user-friendly interfaces and reporting," said Rodman St. Amand, director, strategic accounts at TAC. "Their understanding of their tenants' specific needs has been an ideal guide for the TAC team in planning this project, allowing TAC to customize this implementation to maximize the benefits that Digital Realty Trust's tenants will get from the system. This truly is the best and most usable BAS available, and this rollout is great news for everyone responsible for managing data center implementations in these properties."
"This system is a big plus because it allows our tenants and the Digital Realty Trust operations team to be very proactive about facility management, and it will also result in huge gains in efficiency," said Chris Crosby, senior vice president of sales and technical services at Digital Realty Trust. "In conjunction with the BAS, we are also integrating the Security Access Control System (SACS) and a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), which will allow our tenants the ability to utilize a Web-based dashboard for monitoring and managing all aspects of their installations - from energy usage to security controls to performance metrics - across all the properties where they have equipment. The system will also allow us and our customers to proactively and preemptively address issues that the system alerts us about, nipping things in the bud before they ever become a problem."
For more information about TAC, visit www.tac.com. For more information about Digital Realty Trust, visit www.digitalrealtytrust.com.
Publication date: 07/03/2006