Exclusive: Elevate meets increased DC demand with integrated solutions platform

Excel Networking Solutions, an EMEA-wide supplier of cabling solutions for the LAN market, was first launched in 1997 as a cabling solutions provider targeting local area networks. Now, they're meeting Data Centre demand with their new brand, Elevate. Managing Director Andrew Percival describes the new venture as "a higher specification of cabling solutions that are suitable for the data centre, high power compute and large server room environments."

Percival says that while more power is being packed into data centre racks to optimise AI technology and cloud solutions, they are seeing an increased demand for additional fibre density.

"Only 3 years ago, people would talk about 144 fibres being an extremely dense and very compact solution," says Percival. Now, Elevate offers a fibre cable density of 6,900. "That's saving space in racks (which is money on the floor) but it's also providing the data throughput the bandwidth that's required for these highly time-sensitive searches and queries going into AI engines."

In April, Elevate jumped into the market offering high and ultra-density fibre optic cabling, rack and aisle containment, fibre raceway and intelligent rack power distribution. Percival says that although Elevate is a relatively new name to the market, they are able to stay ahead of the rest with Excel's quick lead times.

"We've seen customer feedback around where we're standing. Our lead times are considerably shorter which enables builds to happen on time, on budget, or in a shorter time frame that might be available from waiting for some of our competitors lead times for standard products," says Percival.

This is made possible through the strategic placement of Elevate's production facility, located in the UK, which serves clients within the country and Europe. "We've structured a UK production facility for high-density fibre cables that shortens the lead time by making them closer to our clients in the UK and Europe rather than importing from the far East for example."

Additionally, having an established cable solutions business paired with a new operations facility provides better accessibility and production times to new clients at Elevate compared to a busy, established company.

"The organizations that have been in the market for some time and have long-standing relationships with hyperscalers and AI factories...They're extremely busy and committed to those clients," says Percival. "[Staying ahead] is the fact that where we are in our development but also we've structured a UK production facility for high density fibre cables."

Faster lead times are also a result of Elevate's partnerships with other key infrastructure players in the data centre market. Since the brand's launch, it has partnered with various companies, from cooling system solutions to infrastructure management.

Percival describes Elevate's product offerings as a menu. Clients can pick from the services and products needed to upgrade data centres. Whether it's fibre connectivity, cooling systems or software. 

In March, Elevate announced its partnership with Sunbird, a global DCIM software company, to provide a platform that tracks the utilisation and efficiency of copper, fibre, and power connectors. This was coupled with the announcement of nVent to bring precision liquid cooling and power management to the product offering menu.

"[Our clients] can deal with less supply chain partners and bundle together procurement is advantageous to them. We've been able to pull that solution set together to enable that conversation to be had," says Percival. "What we're putting together is a set of complimentary solutions that enables people to have one company to deal with that offers industry leading highest density possible."