Leoch Returns to Face-to-Face Exhibiting

Our expert team had the exhilarating experience of coming face-to-face with more than 1,300 businesses at the DataCentres Ireland Exhibition and Conference in Dublin this month.

It’s always exciting to appear at key events like this but this occasion was particularly special as it was the first time we had returned to exhibiting since the pandemic began.

It’s always great to be seen at this event because Ireland, and Dublin in particular, is widely recognised as a hot spot for data centres. Consequently, it gave us a brilliant opportunity to share our expertise with a wide range of multi-national organisations and service companies connected to the industry.

In many ways it felt as though the world was returning to normal. However, there were reminders that things had changed since the last time the show was staged in 2019.

Unsurprisingly, we were unable to completely escape the presence of Covid-19. During the second day of the exhibition, the Irish Government urged people to begin working from home again the following day in response to a rising number of cases there. Although this did have a slight impact on visitor numbers, we were still pleased to welcome lots of people to our stand safely. Handshakes were eagerly replaced with bumping elbows and exhibiting in face masks for the first time didn’t stop us from re-establishing old relationships and forging new ones.

We also saw firsthand that the debate about the presence of data centres in our society has also moved on. For anyone who doesn’t know, data centres are secure facilities housing IT infrastructure, such as servers and storage systems, and are where our data, music and photographs are stored. This is why we rely on them so heavily in the 21^st century.

Data centres are filled with racks and racks of IT equipment. Think for a second about your own laptop and how warm it gets when it’s in use. Now try to imagine how hot a building filled with IT equipment could become if cooling systems aren’t installed to bring down the temperature. As a result of this technology, data centres tend to be quite power hungry and some people are raising concerns that they’re not environmentally friendly.

Outside the exhibition in Dublin, a small group of protesters made the news with their calls for the building of more data centres to be halted. They were worried about how much power data centres consume but interestingly enough their concerns were actually one of the topics being discussed inside the conference itself.

There were talks by leading experts about improving power usage and making data centres greener through the use of environmentally friendly cooling methods. It is clear that the industry is keen to find innovative solutions to the challenges it faces because it knows it can’t waste energy.

It’s recognition of Leoch’s industry-leading expertise that our own Phil Hardy was asked to be a speaker at the conference. Phil joined other internationally-renowned speakers for the Panel Discussion on UPS Batteries – Lithium Ion vs Lead Acid. The discussion focused on the increasing interest in the use of lithium ion batteries in data centres over more traditional lead acid options. As Leoch is a leading provider of both types of batteries, Phil was able to actively contribute to the discussion about the pros and cons of both technologies.

The truth is there is no definitive answer to which battery is the best suited to data centres as both have advantages and disadvantages. As Phil explained during the discussion, the key thing is for organisations to look at what their own applications require and then choose the option which best suits their needs.

Given that batteries produced by Leoch are widely used in communication networks and data centres at all levels, our expert team has a huge amount of experience in this area. So, if you want to make sure you choose the best – and most efficient – option for your organisation contact us first so we can go through the choices with you.

And for anyone who is disappointed that they couldn’t get to see us in Dublin we’re pleased to announce that we will be exhibiting at two more major shows soon. We will be at Data Centre World in Frankfurt on 8 and 9 December 2021 and at Data Centre World in London on 2 and 3 March 2022.

In the meantime, for more information on our range of lithium and lead acid batteries and how they can benefit you or your business, contact our team at 01858 433 330 or email sales.uk@leoch.com.