The recently updated Schneider Electric University has been designed to help upskill data centre professionals and address the sector’s skills gap.
The CPD-accredited digital education platform is free and available in 14 different languages, with Schneider Electric recently announcing a series of updates to the platform. These include fundamentals of power, cooling, racks, and physical security, and guidance on how to optimise data centre designs to drive resilience, energy efficiency and sustainability.
Examples of its newest courses include Optimising Cooling Layouts for the Data Centre; Fundamental Cabling Strategies in the Data Centre; Examining Fire Protection Methods in the Data Centre; and Fundamentals of Cooling II – Humidity in the Data Centre.
According to the Uptime Institute Annual Data Center Survey 2021, staff requirements are estimated to grow globally to nearly 2.3 million in 2025. The aim of the SE University is to support data centre professionals to upskill for free, and address the industry skills shortage.
“In the last few years, data centre capacity demands have grown exponentially, reaching record new highs as digitisation and cloud adoption accelerates. The sector skills shortage, however, remains a significant challenge and has potential implications for other connected industries,” said Rob McKernan, Senior Vice President, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric Europe.
“By providing guidance on the latest technology and sustainability initiatives, we believe the Schneider Electric University offers an invaluable resource to help bridge the skills gap by empowering business ecosystems, reskilling the workforce, and training the next generation of professionals to build the data centres of the future.”
Prior to its acquisition by Schneider Electric in 2006, the Data Center Science Center at APC created the Data Centre University as a free resource to create a CPD-accredited training curriculum that would support the professional development of industry members.
Now branded the Schneider Electric University, the platform offers more than 200 data centre, energy efficiency and sustainability courses via two colleges, the Professional Energy Manager (PEM), and the DCCA qualification. According to the Schneider, the university has delivered more than one million courses to over 650,000 data centre users.
The university is recognised by 25 different industry CPD bodies including BICSI, the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA), Engineers Ireland, and the Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP).