Public schools may not be the first use case that comes to your mind when you think of cutting-edge enterprise technology. The Westfield Public Schools is a K through 12 public school district in Westfield, NJ. There are 10 different buildings across the township managed by a coordinated IT services team. The team has learned that it pays to adopt an intelligent, converged infrastructure. The district has been able to save tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for capital expenses and even more in ongoing operating expenses by implementing an IP based infrastructure. The power backbone of that system is provided by VoltServer’s Digital Electricity™ technology.

Digital Electricity™ has a centralized hub and spoke architecture that reaches up to 2km allowing the central location to be backed up by a single large UPS, battery plant, or generator. This removes the need for a dedicated UPS in every IDF closet throughout the building where the uncontrolled environments would reduce the lifespan of the batteries inside the UPS. The central UPS is in a climate-controlled environment, maintaining the proper lifespan, reducing IDF rack space requirements, reducing the complexity of the design. Furthermore, the VoltServer system can be configured to prioritize which loads are powered or not during an outage using a software interface to a building management system (BMS). The system can set priorities for safety-critical end devices over other IoT appliances.