Data center training by APC

APC by Schneider Electric has set up a training facility which will train
people on various aspects of setting up, scaling and managing a data center.
This institute would be opened officially by September, 2009 and would be based
in Mumbai. It is reportedly spread across 5 lakh square feet.

The company had a training center in Mumbai, but it was not big enough to
accommodate several students learning a comprehensive curri­culum. “We needed a
bigger place where classrooms are just one part of the learning environment.
This center would have a library, professional instructors, Internet resources
and candidates would have access to video conferen­cing facility where depending
on the kind of training to be given we would bring connectivity with experts
around the world. So it will be a virtual best practices delivery center for
training on all aspects of a data center,” said Shrinivas Chebbi, CGM &
President-India and SAARC, American Power Corporation.

The institute will initially train APC's internal engineers as well as those
of its customers and partners' engineers. Over time, the company hopes to make
it open to the general public as well, to encourage more people to get trained
on data center techniques.

This training center is part of APC's initiative to empower its channel
network and scale up their technical prowess in data centers. This aside, APC is
also going to roll out a channel program for its sales partners.

The soon-to-be annou­nced channel program would be rolled out for the sales
partners across 35 cities in the country, to help them offer the entire solution
stack not only of APC, which includes UPS, racks, cooling units, etc; but also
of Schneider Electric which has energy manage­ment solutions including lighting.

Under this program, APC's sales partners would be clubbed under a common
program. Later they will be segmented across different tiers depen­ding on their
positioning and APC will customize the program to suit the different tiers.