Meet the largest Data Centre Training & Audit Company in the world: EPI

The Silicon Review

"EPI was awarded as one of the 20 Most Promising Data Center Solution Providers 2016 by CIOReview for the second year in a row.”

The data centre market is growing, and its growth is attributed to the deployment of Cloud, Internet of Things and Big Data which bring a lot of new technological, organizational and operational challenges to organizations at an unimaginable pace. A lot of companies face tough challenges dealing with it all. While, EPI (Enterprise Products Integration Pte Ltd), headquartered in Singapore brings logic and order to a chaotic world by offering an extensive range of first class data centre infrastructure services. EPI was originally incorporated in 1987 in the UK, after which it was incorporated in Singapore in 1999 as a data centre design and build company. A new legal entity was incorporated in 2001 to focus on data centre training, audit and certification.

Services offered

Data Centre Training – A wide range of globally-accredited certified training programs are organized by EPI to impart knowledge about all aspects of the data centre. The training covers three tracks; “Data centre facilities design & built”, “governance, operations and maintenance” and “compliance”. The company also offers training in IT management, at three levels; Certified IT Professional (CITP), Certified IT Specialist (CITS) and Certified IT Expert (CITE).

Data Centre audit and certification – EPI address two aspects of the data centre;

a. Data centre facilities for which it provides audit and certification based on three standards primarily; ANSI/TIA-942 (EPI is the largest audit company for this standard in the world), EN-50600 (a relatively new standard) and SS507 (a Singapore Standard for BC/DR – Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery).

b. Data centre governance, operations and maintenance which is based on the EPI-DCOS® (Data
Centre Operations Standard). It is the first and most complete data centre specific standard in the world.

The training assists customers to acquire knowledge and competences about various aspects of data centres effectively and efficiently. It has proven to save time, money and prevent costly mistakes while promoting job satisfaction and creating a more competent workforce. The audit and certification services ensure that customers meet compliance requirements and minimise risk factors while enhancing efficiency. This instills a better quality control/confidence.

EPI’s position in the current domain
EPI is by far the largest data centre training company in the world. It works with customers to understand their challenges and develop solutions. The company is deeply involved in various standards and technology committees, placing it at the forefront of understanding first hand technology roadmaps and changes in various standards. The Company contributes a lot to the standard committees to ensure that standards stay relevant to the current environment. For DCOS specific, it will enhance the data centre operations and organizational and process integration to make sure that the data centre runs like a well oiled machine.

Clientele
EPI has customers from over 50 countries. The company has clients from various industrial segments which widens its clientele spectrum. They serve Fortune-100 companies as well as local customers distributed throughout the world. So basically, any organisation with a data centre, critical to its business is a target customer for EPI and it enjoys offering great services which help the enterprise achieve its business goals with the data centre being a fundamental part of the strategy and business operations.

Staying unique in the domain
The company’s team of experts and veterans engaged in designing and building data centers are second to none. Unlike other data centre training companies who are also event organizers, network cabling training providers etc., EPI is known for its immense focus and expertise in this industry. Its course development process is very rigorous with an assessment of competences required in the industry supported by test criteria for the exams and ultimately the content of the course. All the courses are impartially accredited and closed with an exam by EXIN. It is also totally vendor agnostic to ensure that customers get an honest view on technology and methodologies without being pushed in a certain direction. The company has certified auditors where as other audit & certification companies have often ‘techies’ performing an audit based on their own defined processes and abilities. EPI has a competitive advantage over its competitors due to its firsthand knowledge of standards as they are a part of technical committees that establish them. The company is also incorporated as a “Certification Body” which allows it to issue official certificates for a wide variety of standards.

Present and future venture
EPI always keep close to its customers in order to provide the best services possible within the same culture and time-zone and hence it builds operating capabilities in each region it serves; USA & Canada, LATAM, Europe, Africa, Middle-East and Asia-Pacific. The present and future undertaking of the company involves its core competencies; training and audit & certification. It constantly looks at the industry from technology, standards and customer’s business requirements perspective in order to make sure that great benefits reach their valued customers.

Know the Key Executive

Edward van Leent, Chairman & CEO – Edward has held various senior management positions in multinational companies in the areas of customer services, business development, sales & marketing and senior strategic management before joining EPI. He is a member of AFCOM, FEA, ASHRAE and many other organizations. Edward is also the vice-chairman of the workgroup for the Singapore Standard for BC/DR SS507 and is part of the standard committees for standards such as ANSI/TIA-942 and BICSI-002.

He has received top awards, but the prominent ones include the ‘Chairman Achievement Award’ at Mentor Graphics, the ‘Excellence Award’ and ‘World Wide Field Operations Excellence Award’ at Sequent. He recently received the ‘CEO of the Month award’ from CIOReview for his leadership at EPI.