Yahoo! and Schneider Electric donate server equipment worth $50,000 to WVC

Yahoo! and Schneider Electric donated both new and used equipment worth approximately $50,000 to Wenatchee Valley College for the development of a new training program for data centers.

Dave Burns, WVC Computer Technology faculty, and Zack Jacobson, WVC Industrial Technology faculty, are working with industry to develop a training program to provide students with a background in computer hardware and networking as well as industrial electronics and control systems.

“With the increasing number of data centers in our area, we feel this is a great opportunity for the college and our students,” Burns said.

Yahoo! donated 50 servers decommissioned from one of their data centers.  Industry partner Schneider Electric donated a new APC Server Rack, a new APC Uninterruptible Power Supply System (UPS) and a used static transfer switch.

Most server farms provide a redundant power source to servers, Jacobson explained.  A static transfer switch allows a server farm employee to seamlessly switch from one power source to another, keeping the circuit live for a period of time while the switch happens.

“These industry partnerships provide our workforce education programs with insight, equipment and a window to what is actually being used in the working world.  They also provide students with relevant educational experiences leading to viable careers,” Jacobson said. 

“We are very grateful for the donation to our programs.  It will really help our students in setting up and configuring network servers and power load scenarios that we were unable to do before,” Burns said.