Colleges Offer Opportunity for IT Solution Providers

By Schneider Electric Guest Blogger

As pandemic-related concerns persist, colleges and universities are walking a fine line between on-campus and remote learning while struggling with IT staff shortages. These challenges open up opportunities for IT solution providers to deliver managed power services to monitor and service campus IT infrastructure and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).

Delivering a hybrid learning approach that combines remote and on-campus classes strains IT departments. In many cases, they’re already stretched thin. To compound the issue, IT workers are in short supply, so recruitment is a challenge. In a recent blog, IT industry association CompTIA said that “skilled IT workers will be hard to find and difficult to keep” throughout 2022.

Adding to the issue, CompTIA says, many IT workers are considering taking part in the “great resignation,” with 72% of respondents in a recent poll saying they may quit their jobs within 12 months.

IT solution providers are in a solid position to augment IT needs at colleges and universities. Providers can take over many IT tasks through remote management and automation. One of those tasks is the management of the power infrastructure. Solution providers can simplify power management for colleges and universities by delivering it as a service while reducing downtime potential.

Power on the Edge

To effectively manage the power infrastructure, organizations increasingly rely on edge computing networks that keep processing, storage and analytics as close as possible to data sources and users. Edge computing sites are essentially micro data centers with many of the same requirements of a data center, such as security and UPS.

Edge sites tend to multiply as organizations need to grow. As a result, managing these sites can be a daunting task for any organization, especially a college or university with multiple campuses. Therefore, edge computing sites typically must be managed remotely, which is what IT solution providers can do.

UPS Protection — Spotlighting Managed Power Services

The Ventura County Community College District (VCCCD) turned to an IT solution provider, California-based UPS Protection, when the district wanted to improve its power infrastructure management. Their IT infrastructure spanned 120 wiring closets dispersed through three campuses in Southern California. The college previously took a break/fix approach to power management at all its edge sites, which was time-consuming and ineffective.

UPS Protection embarked on a project to ensure every wiring closet was protected and remotely monitored to improve management and reliability. The provider implemented Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT Expert for visibility, monitoring and alarming, combined with Schneider’s Monitoring & Dispatch 24/7 service, enabling an automatic response whenever there is a problem with a UPS.

Reaping Managed Power Services Benefits

For the college, the UPS Protection implementation solved a problem. The school now has a strategy in place to reduce unplanned IT downtime. UPSs are running properly and quickly serviced with managed power services whenever there is an issue.

For the IT provider, the implementation creates a new source of recurring revenue on top of the initial hardware sales. Recurring revenue is attractive because it ensures a continuous cash flow so that providers don’t have to keep relying on the next solution sale to keep the business healthy.

Access UPS Protection Customer Story

Delivering managed power services to higher education institutions or customers in other segments like retail and banking spurs business growth for IT solution providers. And as IT solution providers take over remote management of IT assets such as the power infrastructure, they enter long-term engagements that allow them to act as trusted advisors. Interested in seeing how UPS Protection did it? Discover more about UPS Protection’s managed power success story in improving uptime for Ventura County Community College District.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.