Friday, June 13, 2014

3 MW Solar Roof-Top Projects Commissioned In Gujarat




Tata Power Solar, India’s largest specialized solar EPC player, has successfully commissioned 62 sites in Gujarat which includes a 1.2 MW plant for Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA), a 750 kW plant for Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and 1.1 MW of projects across various smaller industries.
 The 1.2 MW solar power project at GEDA was executed at 34 different sites and is expected to generate 1.8 million units of energy. The 750 kW project for SMC which spreads over 14 sites was commissioned in three months with 100% compliance of local regulatory norms.
“Tata Power Solar’s work with GEDA, SMC and the smaller industries is a result of our expertise in handling projects of varied scale, over a range of roofings. All these projects were challenging and we are proud to have executed them in record time”, said Dr. Arul Shanmugasundram, EVP Projects & CTO, Tata Power Solar.
 TATA Power Solar has also recently commissioned a cumulative 1.1 MW of solar roof-top projects for corporates, engineering companies, pharmaceutical units, commercial complexes and the food industry. All these installations have unique features like mounting of solar panels on industrial sheds, RCC roofs and slanting roofs.
Gujarat was the first state in India to have its own solar policy. The state has the highest installation of nearly 1 GW of solar power capacity and is the only power surplus state in the country. GEDA was one of the pioneer nodal agencies to implement rooftop grid connect systems in India. In 2012, SMC commenced production of solar power by installing 100 kW solar panels atop Science Center and, within a span of one year, had produced 1.35 lakh units of power.
Tata Power Solar, India’s largest specialised EPC player, operates 200 MW of solar module manufacturing in Bangalore and has designed and built more than 160 MW of ground-mounted and 40 MW of rooftop projects till date.

Polycom Unveils Personal Virtual Meeting Rooms




Polycom RealPresenceOne is all set to change the dynamics of the video conferencing market in India. The new offering launched early this year and has been popular for industries like manufacturing, healthcare, education, government, financial services and various other verticals, is now available across all the cities in India. It is a comprehensive package for video and content collaboration which is now sold by subscription making it even easier for companies to adopt human collaboration.

According to a recent forecast by Gartner, the top 10 technology trends and drivers that will be strategic for Indian organizations in 2014 include ‘collaboration technologies’ which encompasses voice over IP, file sharing, videoconferencing, content archiving, media streaming, feedback and polling. Real-time collaboration technologies not included in the Web conferencing category include instant messaging and stand-alone audio conferencing. In India where enterprises look for a customized product or service for all their business needs, now with Polycom Real Presence One organisations can choose from the new, flexible video delivery options  available, including hybrid and on-premises video, depending on the option that works best for their business models and budgets. All of the options include the same benefits now what the size of the investment making RealPresence One truly scalable.

Polycom’s new RealPresence Platform options include:

•    Virtualised collaboration through a subscription: Polycom RealPresence One is a new, comprehensive offering including RealPresence Platform software and services for video, voice and content collaboration, available on an annual subscription basis. This is an ideal solution for customers who want to implement voice, video and content collaboration solutions in their organisations for the first time.

•    Virtual editions of individual RealPresence Platform components: Polycom RealPresence Platform, Virtual Editions: individual components of the award-winning RealPresence Platform are now available as virtualised software that runs on industry-standard servers in existing datacenters. Polycom RealPresence, Virtual Editions are ideal for organisations who want to optimise, streamline or expand their existing video networks, and will work alongside hardware appliances, for a seamless, hybrid network.

Polycom Realpresence One has been enhanced to model the way today's users are accessing critical business systems based on the following five premises:

Enjoy simplicity— A comprehensive offering includes all the software and services one needs to ensure success

Low risk—No CAPEX investment, increase video resources anytime, and renew subscription annually

Align with strategic IT policies— One can add video infrastructure to their existing virtualized datacenter

Increase agility— Easily spin-up and spin-down video capacity based on one’s organization’s changing needs

Reduce deployment time—Software is quick and easy to deploy, especially for trials and proof-of-concepts

Reduces total cost of ownership— Virtual appliances and applications use one’s IT resources more efficiently, supporting datacenter consolidation

“This opens up new opportunities for businesses in India to adopt collaboration solutions that would truly enable their teams to benefit from face to face collaboration no matter where they are across India.” said Minhaj Zia, Managing Director, India & SAARC. “These are very exciting times for Indian based businesses as they can strengthen their competitive offerings not just across India but in the global market place as well.  This is an ideal solution for customers who want to implement voice, video and content collaboration solutions in their organisations for the first time.”


Academy Reaches 2000 Under-Served Students In Gujarat




Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services has today announced that Liberty Career Academy has selected Avaya Scopia videoconferencing capabilities to enhance its video-enabled learning platform – helping more students in remote locations benefit from access to education and delivering operational cost savings in the process.
Liberty Career Academy, one of the leading private coaching institutes in Gujarat, has deployed Avaya’s comprehensive video conferencing solutions across its 12 centers and 60 classrooms. The Academy provides educational facilities to more than 2000 underserved students across remote cities throughout Gujarat. The institute successfully reduced the cost of its operations – including time, travel and administration - by implementing video conferencing solutions. The student learning and engagement experience has been transformed by the provision of remote classroom sessions which enables the Academy to deliver the same rich compelling content, and allows remote students to interact with their classroom-based peers and expert faculty.
Core to the deployment was the installation of the Avaya Scopia Elite 6110 multi-point control unit (MCU) which supports a true HD experience delivered via Avaya Scopia XT 4200 HD video-conference endpoints. This HD multi-party video collaboration solution optimizes bandwidth utilization and the Academy estimates it will deliver up to 30 percent savings in bandwidth costs annually.
Video conferencing has proved itself as an effective tool for distance learning. There are many students living in remote areas of India who are deprived of good quality education due to lack of appropriate faculty and resources. These solutions have been recognized as a powerful learning tool, empowering educational institutes to engage remote students in a video enhanced learning experience. The unique ‘slider’ function in the Avaya solution allows students to solidify their understanding of the content presented during the session by reviewing previously presented content, without interrupting the instructor. A fully blended learning experience allows faculty to reach both in-room and remote students simultaneously with the same content, and remote students can access the sessions from almost any smartphone, table, PC or Mac – with a simple click on a meeting invitation.
The institute has also seen significant cost savings. These have been achieved in particular through reduced classroom time and capacity, lower administrative costs, and reduced faculty travel time. The implementation through Avaya video- enabled learning solutions has freed up the resources of the institute to spend towards trained faculty and an increase in the number of MCU installations.  

Ensure Safety & Security for Priceless Data





In the business world of today, data centers play a vital role, storing the data of their customers and ensuring that they are available continuously. For this reason, data centers are particularly vulnerable to service interruptions—their infrastructure needs to be protected not only against hardware failures and data line and power supply interruptions, but also against physical hazards such as sabotage and fire. Geneva-based provider Safe Host uses solutions from Siemens to protect the data of its customers.

Very few companies today are willing—and financially able—to operate and maintain their own data centers. This void is filled by service providers such as Safe Host whose data centers ensure that their customers can focus on their core business.Geneva-based data center operator Safe Host was founded in 2000, began operations in September 2002 and today is one of the leading provider of data center and workplace recovery services in Switzerland. Its portfolio includes comprehensive IT services ranging from simple dedicated servers to business continuity and managed IT services. Safe Host’s 5000 square meter Tier III data center in a Geneva suburb now houses approximately 12,000 servers and storage devices (Network Attached Storage) containing the data of more than 140 customers, including international aid organizations such as UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Swiss luxury goods manufacturer Chopard and French car maker PSA Peugeot CitroĂ«n. In total, Safe Host currently stores a data volume exceeding 1 Petabyte . Safe Host has been ISO9001:2008 certified since 2003 and fulfills the guidelines of the independent Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. “Our customers include many international organizations, global companies and financial institutions for which a loss of data would be an absolute disaster,” explains GĂ©rard Sikias, CEO of Safe Host. “As a  service provider we guarantee the safety of our customers’ valuable data by protecting them as best and comprehensively as possible. In addition to a site with low external risks, as is the case here outside the city center, our security concept also includes the use of best- of-breed safety and security technology from Siemens. In addition, our entire data center is designed for high redundancy according to the N+1 principle: This extends not only to IT, but also to essential systems such as uninterruptible power supply (UPS), emergency generators and the automatic extinguishing system.”

State-of-the-art extinguishing solutions for data centers

Safe Host owns a six-story building, five of which are occupied almost entirely by IT equipment. The top floor is used by company management and administration. The expansion of the five-story data center was driven by demand: Step by step, one floor after the other, from the top of the building towards the bottom, was equipped with the necessary technology. For this reason, Safe Host’s building now contains different generations of fire detectors, fire control panels and extinguishing control panels from Siemens—some floors still use fire detectors and control panels from the older AlgoRex line, while most are equipped with devices from the current Sinteso family.All fire safety and security devices are managed using a Siemens LMS 6 central management station. The LMS 6 collects information from more than 2,800 data points and visualizes them on 60 graphical displays of all the floors, offering varying levels of detail.

Today, Safe Host’s building is divided into 350 fire detection zones. No fewer than 830 highly sensitive fire detectors from the Sinteso and AlgoRex families are in use. To ensure reliable fire detection,  they are supported by approximately 30 aspirating smoke detectors which continuously analyze the room air for smoke particles. In addition, some 50 manual call points are installed at strategic locations  throughout the building. All detectors are connected to a total of four AlgoRex CC11 fire control panels, supplemented by four AlgoRex floor repeater displays. In an emergency,65 alarm sounders make sure that the building is evacuated quickly.

The automatic extinguishing system meets all the requirements specific to data centers. Water or water mist cannot be used to extinguish a fire in a data center: The moisture would potentially cause more damage to the sensitive electronics of the servers and storage devices than the fire itself. For this reason, Safe Host uses a Sinorix N2 gas extinguishing system. If the fire detectors detect and confirm a fire, the system automatically triggers the extinguishing process. Valves on the gas tanks in the basement of the building are opened and nitrogen, an inert natural gas, flows through a complex piping network into the room where it is needed. There nitrogen displaces oxygen, robbing the fire of one of its essential components. All of this happens in a matter of minutes and it is an effective way to extinguish both open fires and smoldering fires. Safe Host’s building is divided into 21 extinguishing sectors ; each sector is equipped with its own extinguishing system comprising gas tanks, piping network and extinguishing control panel.

Highest level of security in and around the building

For building security, Safe Host also chose a solution from Siemens. At the heart of the solution is a CC440 intrusion detection system to which 20 infrared motion detectors are connected. In addition to 50 automatic door interlocks, 180 magnetic contacts on doors and windows protect the building against intruders. In addition, surveillance cameras are installed at all major entrances to document attempted break-ins, acts of sabotage and other unusual incidents. In case of a direct attack, two panic buttons are available to manually trigger an alarm.

“Our highly secure building and our protected IT infrastructure allow us to offer our customers business continuity services on-site,” says GĂ©rard Sikias. “If a customer’s IT or building is no longer usable after an extraordinary incident, their employees can temporarily move into our building. Since we have the necessary infrastructure and the customer’s data are already here in the form of backups, the customer can resume their business activities within a very short period of time. In some industries, this service can ensure a company’s economic survival .”