See More. Plan Better. Build Smarter: A New Approach to Data Centre Design

Why bother with data-driven design?

First, look at the size of this thing. The data centre market is already worth about US $348 billion in 2024 and could jump past US $650 billion by 2030.  That is a lot of money tied up in rooms full of humming servers. Trouble is, many of those rooms still follow floor plans drawn years ago. New AI and edge gear needs more juice and throws out much more heat, yet the layout rules have not moved in step. By 2025, there will be over 41.6 billion connected devices, and 50% of IoT data will be processed at the edge. We keep stacking in new hardware and hope the old model copes. Often it does not. 

Here is the cost of that hope. Cooling now eats close to 40 percent of a site’s total power. Industry PUE sits stubbornly near 1.55 even while the big cloud players push below 1.3. And if the room goes dark the meter spins fast: US $7,900 for every minute of unplanned downtime. Add AI racks that hit 40 kW each and the margin for guessing fades to zero. What we need now is live data, good analytics, and a way to test changes before the electrician unspools a single cable. That is where the next piece of the story, EcoStruxure IT, steps in. 

A single place to see what’s really going on  Every device in a data centre reports something. PDUs send current, cooling units log temperatures, sensors note humidity. EcoStruxure IT sits in the cloud and listens to all those feeds through open SNMP and Modbus links, so it doesn’t care who made the hardware. The readings land on one web page that works on a phone or a laptop.  A typical monitoring layout used in distributed or hybrid IT environments to consolidate alerts and track system health remotely.

Image Source: Schneider Electric Australia — EcoStruxure™ IT Expert product overview page

Operators no longer jump between five vendor dashboards. They just see one list of live values and alarms. EcoStruxure IT Expert monitors UPSs, cooling systems, PDUs and more, using over 300 billion records in its data lake to benchmark and alert on potential issues before they happen. The aim is simple: spot a rising temperature or a tired battery early and plan the fix, instead of racing the clock. 

Inside that service, you meet three tools: 

• IT Expert
  Monitors everything remotely. It looks at billions of data points across thousands of other sites to help flag issues early — like an overloaded UPS or an unusual spike in rack temperature. It’s like having a second set of eyes that doesn’t miss anything.  
  
  
• IT Advisor
  Helps with planning. It maps out your power and cooling setup and lets you simulate changes — like adding a new rack or shifting load — before you actually do anything on site. 
  
  
• Data Center Expert 
  Gives you that same level of insight but on-premises. It’s helpful for sites where data can’t leave the building for compliance reasons.

Image Source: Schneider Electric Australia — EcoStruxure™ IT Expert product overview page

Together, these tools give teams a much clearer view of their environment, without needing to juggle multiple systems or rely on outdated assumptions. 

Building layouts without the guesswork 

Once you’ve got the live data, the next step is knowing what to do with it. That’s where Schneider’s design tools come in. Instead of relying on old floor plans or static spreadsheets, these tools let you test layouts, size power chains, and configure cooling before anything is rolled out on-site. It’s all done visually, so it’s quick to try different options and see what makes sense. 

Here are the main ones that come in handy:  

These design portals don’t just save time, they reduce mistakes. And when you're working with tighter budgets and faster deployment timelines, that can make all the difference. 

Audits and future planning go hand in hand 

Even with smart design tools, you need to know what’s already on the floor. That’s what audits are for. UPS load assessments, battery wear scores, and device vulnerability checks are now built into EcoStruxure assessments — helping teams proactively address risks. They show where racks are overloaded, where airflow is blocked, or where power isn’t distributed properly. 

Most audits uncover things like: 

• Legacy equipment using more energy than it should
  
• Single points of failure in power setups 
• Cooling gaps sensors didn’t catch 

These insights aren’t just helpful, they’re critical. They help you plan upgrades that make sense, rather than overbuilding. And when you’re dealing with AI gear or edge expansion, getting that baseline right makes everything else smoother. 

What you save is just as important as what you build 

One of the biggest shifts with data-driven design is this: it’s not just about building smarter layouts, it’s about seeing clear returns. 
Across real deployments, the results speak for themselves: 

• Energy savings of 15–20%, with better visibility and smarter cooling adjustments 

• Rack utilisation improved by up to 40%, as Sunbird customers reported, simply by understanding capacity in real time 

• Labour time reduced by up to 25%, with customers reporting fewer manual tracking and troubleshooting tasks (Vertiv) 

• Downtime risk reduced, with faster alerts and predictive insights from EcoStruxure IT Expert 
  
  

And in real dollars: 

• Regionservice Skåne saved US $2.8 million annually by optimising 31 facilities with EcoStruxure tools 
• Novelis saw US $1.9 million in energy savings after deploying EcoStruxure Power Monitoring
• Puget Sound Energy reduced the number of racks they needed by a third, cut their PUE by 75%, and got their new dual-site infrastructure running in just six months 

These cases are examples of what’s possible when data and design work together from day one. For teams looking to get started, the path forward doesn’t need to be complex or overwhelming. In most cases, it starts with visibility, a few smart tools, and the willingness to rethink how decisions get made. 

So where do you start? 

You don’t need to rip up your data centre or start some massive transformation. Most of the time, it begins with clearer visibility. One dashboard. One feed. Just knowing what’s working and what’s not. 

Then you build on it. Try out different layouts before touching the floor. Balance your power. Check airflow. And eventually, take a closer look at what’s already running and ask if it still makes sense to keep it there. 

Most teams don’t start with a grand plan. They start with one useful insight that makes the next step obvious. 

And when you're ready to take that next step, the tools are there and so are we. 

Whether it's starting with a UPS health score, mapping your rack layout, or running a remote audit — these are all low-friction entry points Intelli can support. Intelli Systems works alongside Schneider to help organisations in ANZ turn all this data into action. From live audits to digital layout planning and tool setup, we help make things simpler. Whether you're designing from scratch or just fixing what’s already there, we’ll help you get more out of every square metre.