We spoke with Adrian Lazenby, Head of Technical Site Engineering and Delivery, Virgin Media O2, about how Virgin Media O2’s data centre team took advantage of EkkoSense’s AI-powered cooling optimisation software to secure energy savings equivalent to 760 tonnes of carbon dioxide using location-based Scope 3 accounting.
What key factors influenced the decision to partner with EkkoSense over other data centre optimisation providers?
Innovation sits at the heart of everything that Virgin Media O2 does, and we’re making significant investments into our infrastructure expansion and upgrades as we roll out our next-generation 5G mobile and fibre networks. This invariably involves a greater workload demand on the company’s network of technical sites and places an increased focus on ensuring that our sites operate as efficiently as possible. However, delivering increased workload throughput while also ensuring risk reduction and improved sustainability is often challenging.
To help address this, our Technical Site Engineering and Delivery team work consistently to optimise technical sites’ energy performance and make additional energy and efficiency improvements. It can be difficult to unlock the kind of performance improvements that we are looking to achieve – handling greater workloads while also securing energy savings – unless you know exactly what’s happening across your technical sites in real-time. The good news is that all the data is out there, ready to be collected – our operations team just needed to capture it.
Virgin Media O2 engaged EkkoSense, an AI-powered data centre optimisation software specialist, to help our operations teams gain a real-time view of thermal, power and capacity performance across 20 of our key technical sites. Unlike traditional, IT-led DCIM-based approaches, EkkoSense offers a distinctive, AI-enabled software-driven thermal, power and capacity optimisation solution. This enables operations teams to optimise performance in our technical sites, while simultaneously delivering quantifiable sustainability results.
What challenges or opportunities did you encounter while implementing EkkoSense’s solution across the 20 data centres?
The EkkoSense solution brings together an exclusive mix of technology and capabilities. Low-cost Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors provide the innovative SaaS platform with valuable data and, using Machine Learning, provides AI analytics, gaming-class 3D visualisation and Digital Twin capabilities that help to streamline the optimisation process. EkkoSense’s light touch approach meant that deploying the EkkoSense solution across 20 Virgin Media O2 sites took just two weeks on average per site.
How did the solution impact the training and operations of your technical staff? Did it require any upskilling or changes in your team’s approach?
From a thermal management perspective, it’s a lot easier for our technical staff to identify potential cooling issues quickly by using comprehensive 3D Digital Twin visualisations. This lets our team see exactly what’s happening in our technical sites across the business. The 3D visualisation particularly helps in terms of highlighting potential anomalies and displaying suggested airflow and cooling improvements.
Ekkosense has been straightforward and intuitive for the teams to use. We continue to evolve our operational processes to leverage all benefits and, as we do so, our teams are developing their knowledge and skills.
Beyond cooling and energy savings, how has the deployment of Digital Twin and AI technology helped improve other aspects of Virgin Media O2’s data centre operations?
Key benefits for the project to date include securing an initial cooling energy saving across the 20 sites that are equivalent to annual savings of over £1 million per year – and an average 15% saving in data centre cooling energy across the target sites.
The EkkoSense project has also resulted in improved performance for our significant investment in free air-cooling devices by maximising free air capacity. Where possible, reducing maximum rack temperatures has also helped to resolve potential thermal risks associated with hot spots – indeed thermal optimisation across the 20 sites has increased thermal resilience and improved cooling capacity.
EkkoSense’s EkkoSoft Critical optimisation is also unique in that it provides an embedded AI-powered Cooling Advisory tool. This not only provides real-time insight and optimisation advice but also proactively helps our operations teams to ensure our technical sites remain fully optimised continually.
In what ways have EkkoSense’s visualisation and real-time data solutions contributed to Virgin Media O2’s long-term sustainability goals beyond the current savings?
It’s helped us secure energy-saving equivalent to 760 tonnes of carbon dioxide using location-based Scope 2 accounting, and those energy savings will continue to accumulate.
With the EkkoSense software collecting thousands of data points every five minutes, the millions of data points already collected contribute directly to the effectiveness of Machine Learning algorithms.
Having access to this volume of real-time insight allows our operations team to see how Virgin Media O2’s technical sites are performing from a cooling, power and capacity perspective, while also enabling us to identify further energy optimisation opportunities in terms of cooling energy usage and overall savings.
Our technical sites operations team can also access comprehensive global estate dashboard visualisation that provides a clear, consistent view of our digitised technical site estate – offering a consolidated view of capacity, power and thermal performance management across monitored sites.
EkkoSense also continues to add value to its AI-powered 3D visualisation and analytics software solution. That’s continuing with innovations such as Cooling Anomaly Detection that will help us to identify machinal and electrical equipment performance anomalies before potential failures – and we’re looking forward to further functionality as the software continues its development.
How has the EkkoSense solution supported Virgin Media O2’s broader infrastructure strategy?
Ultimately, many of the services that Virgin Media O2 provide come back to IT or network platforms located in our technical sites. With EkkoSense’s solution in place, we benefit from the visibility and insights that help us make more informed decisions on how we design and use our technical sites in the most efficient way.
EkkoSense deployment:
- Deployed across 20 Virgin Media O2 UK data centre sites
- Demanding timeframe as Virgin Media O2 keen to secure reductions in cooling energy usage
EkkoSense deliverables:
- EkkoSensor wireless sensors across target Virgin Media O2 sites
- EkkoSoft Critical AI-powered 3D visualisation and analytics software
- EkkoAir wireless cooling duty sensors
- Data Centre Performance Optimisation Managed Service
Benefits achieved:
- Cooling energy savings secured
- Reduction in carbon emissions
- Removal of thermal risk
- Platform now in place for roll-out to further Virgin Media O2 data centre sites
ROI:
- Average 15% saving in data centre cooling across target sites
- EkkoSense cooling optimisation delivered in just six months – accelerating time to savings
- Cooling energy annual savings of over £1 million per year, equivalent to 760 tonnes of carbon dioxide using location-based Scope 2 accounting
