Submittal
3 WHITE PAPER – Introduction to the Micro Data Center (MDC)
More Meaningful Connections
Micro Data Center Characteristics
The Impact of Team Cooperation on
Reducing Downtime
In today’s business environment, there has been a
movement to centralize responsibility of all computer
networks under the IT department. This move has created
clashes between IT and manufacturing due to differing
needs and equipment deployed. A Micro Data Center
helps to separate the networks and reduce conicts points
between both networks and enterprise teams
that support them.
Historically, the industrial network has been the
responsibility of the manufacturing organization and all
other networks have been rmly under the control of the IT
organization with little connectivity between. One common
complication has been the tendency to install IT equipment
without full consideration for the high availability and
security requirements of automation systems (see Figure 2).
Another spot where problems may arise is identifying if IT or
manufacturing has responsibility for deployment and maintenance of the networks.
Without close communication, coordination, and consensus building between all industrial network stakeholders,
critical manufacturing resources can be at risk of outages, lost batches, and ultimately lost revenue.
Figure 2. Poor Industrial Network Installation Can Generate
Unacceptable Downtime Risks
The Micro Data Center Dened
A Micro Data Center (or MDC) is a versatile combination of hardware, software and cabling that serves as an
end-to-end networking hub, similar to a telecommunications room or network room but much smaller scale than
the typical enterprise data center. The dening characteristic of an MDC is that it houses a complete data center
infrastructure in a single space – electronic devices, patch elds, cable management, grounding/bonding, power,
and copper/ber cabling – yet is sized to serve the demands of a manufacturing environment.
The MDC is a new concept, representing the next phase in the transition from tower computing systems
in a manufacturing environment to rack and cabinet-based deployments, with the ability to serve a variety
of enterprise purposes. For example, the MDC can act as a standalone system that runs manufacturing
applications such as:
• Process and event monitoring, process historian, production tracking, OEE reporting
• Control network, outer loop control, recipe download
• Quality control, material handling, maintenance, lot tracing, and asset management
• ERP integration (i.e. scheduling, reporting, material consumption, etc.)
The MDC also can take the form of a networking hub that has no servers, existing primarily to tie cabling
and switches together. For large manufacturing complexes or remote locations, an MDC can serve as a data
collection node that passes manufacturing data up to the enterprise (i.e., Store and Forward). Finally, an MDC
can also house Virtual Machine (VM) systems for high reliability and efcient server utilization.