Technology that was designed for optimising data centres is being applied to power distribution in airports and hospitals. Canadian infrastructure management firm Maya Heat Transfer Technologies (HTT) has repackaged its data centre platform, running on OSIsoft’s data management engine, for new verticals.
Maya HTT, which has made its name as author of energy management software for data centres, said it had “expanded its strategic product alliance” with OSIsoft as part of the deal to bring its data centre platform to other ‘smart’ buildings, notably in the healthcare and aviation markets.
Maya HTT’s Clarity LC platform, deployed by the likes of eBay and PayPal, offers a real-time view of data centre operations and a means to optimise energy consumption. It also provides a forecasting model for performance changes. OSIsoft’s PI System is embedded into the platform already to capture real-time operational data fueling advanced analytics.
The new agreement with OSIsoft will see Maya HTT integrate the PI System in a new smart building offering for healthcare centres and airports.
Maya HTT is working with hospitals on developing an hypervisor platform for optimised room occupancy, safety, and thermal comfort. Bed space costs hospitals “thousands per year to manage and operate”, the pair said, and cannot be allocated randomly.
The new smart building solution will enable healthcare providers to manage factors like room occupancy and ambient conditions and controls, including heating, ventilation and air control.
The version for airports will bring control over power distribution, as well. Excessive power consumption by airlines or other tenants can lead to flight delays. Maya HTT’s smart building solution will help administrators match usage with SLAs, and bring operational insights to airport planning and design.
Remi Duquette, vice president of AI and datacenter at Maya HTT, said: “Hospitals, airports and data centers are three very different environments, but the underlying principles for managing and optimising them are remarkably similar.
“Operational data is the fuel for our advanced analytics and applied AI algorithms, and the PI System has long been the industry standard for capturing and organising industrial type of information so it can be used to effect real change and help people make smarter decisions.”
Scott Smith, industry principal for facilities at OSIsoft, commented: “Maya is at the forefront of the transformation in how critical facilities and other buildings will be managed. The combination of the equivalent of Datacenter Clarity LC and the PI System will help people better understand their facilities and increase their value.”
OSIsoft’s PI System is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company has launched a suite of products to enable industrial players to more easily run and manage its data management platform, which unites data from operational and information environments, on AWS.
Recently, Abu Dhabi-based district cooling giant Tabreed announced it had integrated OSIsoft’s big-data analytics system across its network of 74 district cooling plants to monitor, analyse, and improve performance and reliability. Tabreed is now tracking around 30,000 data streams, or ‘tags’, via OSIsoft’s PI System, in order to monitor power consumption, cooling energy production, and equipment status.
The marine division of US machinery and equipment maker Caterpillar has also recently integrated OSIsoft’s data management system into its industrial AI platform to help shipping companies reduce fuel and maintenance costs and increase uptime. The resulting asset intelligence platform combines PI System with Caterpillar’s own AI services, acquired with the purchase of marine analytics company ESRG in 2015.
