Inside the Advanced Technology Center
In 2012, World Wide Technology (WWT) brought a vision to reality with the Advanced Technology Center (ATC). Built as an ecosystem to design, build, educate, demonstrate, and deploy technology products and integrated architectural solutions, the ATC provides a place for WWT and their customers, partners, employees, and the global technology community to innovate.
Now in 2020, the ATC has become such a critical differentiator for WWT that they are expanding by building a fourth data center. The ATC is like no other testing facility; in fact, it is best described as an “ecosystem” for its exclusive resources, guidance, and tools.
The continued relationships between WWT, AddOn, and other partners provide the opportunity for customers to accelerate projects and reduce the cost, time, and risk that comes with the evaluation of new technology deployments. The ATC provides a proof of concept environment that gives customers the ability to evaluate and validate technology upgrades prior to introducing them within their infrastructure environments, ensuring smooth project installations.
AddOn’s involvement in the ATC
The partnership between AddOn and WWT began in 2018. Since then, AddOn fiber optic transceivers, direct attach cables (DACs), active optical cables (AOCs), patch cables, memory, and accessories have been deployed extensively for use within the ATC to enable functionality testing, product comparisons, and benchmarking activities. Technologies used within the ATC must be able to withstand more strenuous use as the engineers are frequently moving, changing, and adjusting products within the center to evaluate deployment options. AddOn products are up for this challenge, holding the industry’s highest reliability rating of 99.98%.
Numerous OEM vendor servers, switches, and routers reside within the ATC ecosystem, making interoperability a challenge. AddOn fiber optic transceivers are ideal for this type of multi-vendor environment as they have the capability to code and test for more than 100 OEMs, guaranteeing the same form, fit, and functionality of OEM counterparts. Additionally, AddOn offers a universal transceiver, which allows for multiple OEMs to be coded on a single EEPROM, minimizing inventory holding. Between lowered inventory holding and the extensive savings versus OEM originals, AddOn optics are increasingly becoming the chosen provider for networking connectivity products.
Geoff Hubbard, ATC Data Center Operations Manager at WWT, currently oversees the physical equipment architecture in four data centers featuring more than 500 racks. His team is responsible for managing everything from space, power, and cooling to cabling and optics. The ATC is home to a large network of architects, project planners, and engineers — all orchestrating integrated systems to design and validate projects ranging from greenfield to brownfield environments, and everything in between.
“AddOn optics ‘simply work’ in our multi-vendor environment. Our engineers trust that when you plug in an AddOn optic, there won’t be any issues and we won’t need to add in commands to bypass alerts. We’ve also had circumstances where we’ve needed a unique part and AddOn has delivered it the next day,” said Hubbard. “In addition to the dependable products, the value AddOn delivers is in their people. In all my experience working with vendors, AddOn is comparable to hitting the ‘easy button’ — when we request something, they deliver.”
The ease of use and dependability of AddOn optics within the ATC frees up time for the operations team to focus on maintaining the physical equipment and scaling operations by “racking, stacking, cabling, and building” their world-class testing facility.
About AddOn Networks
AddOn Networks is the global leader in optical connectivity solutions serving data center, enterprise, government, education, and healthcare provider networks. It operates in more than 25 countries through its long-standing commercial channels to provide continuity of supply and world-class service.
AddOn offers a full network catalog of optical transceivers and high-speed cabling that are 100% compatible in form and functionality across 100 OEM manufacturers, covering more than 20,000 systems and platforms. Its certified solutions are backed by a lifetime warranty and 24/7/365 global field engineering support. For more information, please visit www.addonnetworks.com
About World Wide Technology
World Wide Technology (WWT) is a technology solution provider with $12 billion in annual revenue that provides digital strategy, innovative technology, and supply chain solutions to large public and private organizations around the globe. While most companies talk about delivering business and technology outcomes, WWT does it. Based in St. Louis, WWT employs more than 6,000 people and operates over 4 million square feet of warehousing, distribution, and integration space in more than 20 facilities throughout the world. For more information, please visit www.wwt.com.
