Renault Trucks uses Comet EX RT UPSs to provide high quality power for 15 switch rooms at St Priest

The Renault St Priest factory is located in the suburbs of Lyon. It covers an area of 250 hectares and has a staff of 2,800 including 1,500 using the site's information system. The engine units for the various marques manufactured by the group are assembled here: 250 engines come off the production lines each day.

Mr Bisillon, who is responsible for the safety and logistics of the computer centres, divides the site's information infrastructure into two categories.
-  The server room (Main Distribution Frame) with dual power sources secured by high power redundant UPSs.
-  Edge switches located in 40 switch rooms (Intermediate Distribution Frames) given the size of the campus. These provide the interface between the Ethernet cable connecting the users and the optical fibre network. There are a number of critical applications: e-mail, the design office CAD work group, archiving and the on-board GPS diagnostics systems fitted to some customers' fleets.

The challenge
Ensure continuity of service for mission applications
15 critical Intermediate Distribution Frames were identified and the supply to each one is protected by an EX RT UPS with 3 battery extensions to provide 60 minutes backup time. To minimise the footprint the system is stacked on a Battery Integration System supplied by MGE.

Remote supervision for the UPSs and their environment
Each UPS is connected to the Ethernet network using the MGE SNMP communication card. The system can, therefore, be easily supervised using the HP Openview platform which is already in use on the site. An Environment Sensor is connected to each card to monitor the temperature in each unit remotely.

MGE UPS SYSTEMS solution
Patrick Andrevon, sales service manager responsible for contracts with Renault Trucks, offered a maintenance contract to cover all the UPSs installed on the site including the 15 new Comet EX RT. This contract covers monitoring the equipment and, if necessary, preventive replacement by MGE to prevent failure (UPSs are generally considered to have an 8 year life cycle).