Schneider, Microsoft Alliance to Develop EMS Software

Schneider Electric and Microsoft will develop custom, cloud-based energy management and sustainability software for customers across diversified industries.  The technology will combine Schneider Electric’s StruxureWare Resource Advisor with the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform.

Schneider says the partnership expands its ability to deploy public, private and hybrid cloud solutions and the partnership with Microsoft enables increased innovation in energy efficiency.

StruxureWare Resource Advisor is Schneider Electric’s enterprise-level cloud-based software application that provides secure access to data, reports and summaries to drive customer energy and sustainability programs. The software is configurable, which allows it to be deployed on the Windows Azure cloud platform. The Resource Advisor can offer:

• Accelerated deployment with access to online sustainability and energy management software
• Global reach as software tools can be scaled quickly, replicated and rolled out globally with local language support
• Eliminating the need to install or maintain additional on-premise IT infrastructure
• Secure cloud connectivity to existing on-site facility energy metering, monitoring and building management systems
• Increased mobility for employees to access information from anywhere
• System architecture based on open standards and protocols, promoting systems integration.

The first StruxureWare Resource Advisor development on the Windows Azure platform created the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) Higg Index 2.0—the web-based tool that helps retail organizations standardize how they measure and evaluate environmental performance of apparel products across the supply chain.

By utilizing StruxureWare Resource Advisor as a foundation to build a proprietary application on the Windows Azure cloud, the SAC’s sustainability assessment tool is now web-based and accessible to the SAC’s global membership. Schneider Electric will continue to roll out the Windows Azure platform globally to support the StruxureWare cloud-based software.

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