An intelligent building infrastructure not only saves costs, power and the environment, but gives companies a competitive edge.

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Dewald Booysen" />Local companies are increasingly adopting advanced infrastructure solutions, says Dewald Booysen, Chief Technology Officer for Advanced Infrastructure at Dimension Data Middle East and Africa. “Which is no surprise given the host of benefi ts it delivers.” At its most basic, an intelligent building is one that  runs on a flexible infrastructure integrated on a single platform.

“The centre of control is handled on a single local area network (LAN)” he says. “The intelligence sits in management tools and systems that provide a solution which can integrate the various communications platforms or manage it over a single IP based communication platform.” With this type of infrastructure, three very pertinent corporate issues are addressed namely cost, power and environmental footprint. “Efficiency is the driver for the intelligent building infrastructure and its implementation optimises running costs,” explains Booysen. “It enhances the spaces people work in, increasing productivity on the whole. 

Since only one building operator is needed for the management of the infrastructure, costs are also  saved at employee level.” When it comes to reducing carbon emissions, running an advanced building infrastructure lowers power usage and creates a positive environmental footprint, Says Booysen,

“An  intelligent building helps alleviate the power supply issues experienced locally and assists in keeping costs low amid ever-increasing energy prices.” “Although green IT practices are not yet enforced locally,  compliance will become compulsory in a matter of time,” warns Booysen. “And it is encouraging to see  how many South African companies are already readying themselves for this  eventuality.” The management systems of intelligent buildings include built-in metering and monitoring  solutions, so that companies will be able to easily and accurately report the details of their carbon  footprint when required.

“Ensuring the optimal running of a building through utilising an advanced infrastructure can also  favourably position a building in the market,” Booysen explains.

“Tenants will be encouraged to rent the space due to the cost-savings associated with it and buyers will be able to take comfort in the fact that the building adheres to Green Data Centre design practices.” According to Booysen, companies moving to an advanced infrastructure model will also benefit from the
reduced risks and simplifi cation of security measures. “In the past, organisations were wary of  infrastructure integration as there existed a possibility of a single point of failure – because the running  of systems occur on a single platform, it meant the entire infrastructure ran the risk of experiencing downtime in case of failure,”

Booysen explains. “Today, however, this is no longer true.” There has been a shift in the systems using protocols such as Bacnet to protocols such as Lonworks and Modbus TCP/IP enabling the convergence  and easier integration over an IP Based network. With organisations often having physical and logical redundancy on their IP networks, there is now redundancy built into the network, ensuring  less risk of failure which in turn translates into a reduction in the risk of downtime,” Booysen explains.

For further information on Advanced Infrastructures intelligent buildings please e-mail:  AI.Information@za.didata.
com.