December 14th, 2011
The expansion of our Bournemouth data centre is still progressing well, and the facility is really starting to take shape!
In order for us to offer cost savings to clients within the Bournemouth data centre, we have ensured that we can accurately monitor the power used within the facility. This monitoring will also allow us to keep a closer eye on our own energy efficiency, and will help to lower CO2 emissions.
The picture you see below shows the piece of kit that allows all of this to happen – a Power monitor.
This equipment will allow us to monitor the power usage of a particular rack at PDU level. At the centre of this system is an energy metering device for each circuit, which is capable of measuring a wide variety of power usage, including…
- RMS Voltage (Volts)
- RMS Current (Amps)
- Power Factor (%)
- Apparent Power (kVA)
- Active Power (kW)
- Reactive Power (kVAr)
- Apparent Energy (kVAh)
- Active Energy (kWh)
- Reactive Energy (kVArh).
The overlying benefit of our extremely accurate power monitoring system is that we will now be able to offer customers two types of colocation within the Bournemouth facility.
The first of these is typical colocation option where our customers will commit to 8/12/16amps in a rack and pay for their commit. The second option is that we will now also be able to provide a footprint cost and then bill for power on a monthly basis. Furthermore, we can also provide graphs of each customers’ power usage, which will accessible from the new customer portal (more to come on that in the New Year!)
Each customer rack will also be equipped with a switched power bar, again allowing us to track power usage and offer customers the ability to turn sockets on and off remotely, saving a huge amount of time if just a simple reboot is required. Of course this option will only be offered if customers so wish, as our technicians are still only a few floors up from the data centre, and on hand to personally attend a rack if needed.
Tags: Bournemouth, C4L, Colocation, Data Centre, Power
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November 24th, 2011
A recent article by Telstra has identified that the increasing rise of data centre facilities outside of London is extremely advantageous for customers. For example, the latest Financial Services Authority (FSA) guidelines state that financial services companies must have a back-up facility over 40km from their primary facility, making towns outside of London extremely attractive as they can then be more than 40km from Docklands to meet FSA guidelines.
There is a belief in the UK that London forms a nexus of connectivity, meaning that colocation centres must be located there to take advantage of this perceived highest-speed connection. Furthermore, if an organisation chooses colocation then the decisions on who provides the service and how an organisation arranges its network can become almost immaterial. However, as mentioned above there are a wealth of colocation centres across the UK for companies to choose from.
With ever-faster network connections, data communication to and from these centres can be measured in milliseconds, making London’s perceived increased connectivity immaterial in most cases. At the same time, with boundaries on physical space and available power, London can only support a finite number of such centres meaning that the location can command a premium price. Unless a business is based in London, and is in an industry where near-instantaneous communication is essential- such as finance, it tends to be a more cost-effective solution to use a colocation centre outside of London.
At C4L our network spans across the UK, and we can offer a variety of colocation solutions in multiple data centres outside of London. Our most recent non-London data centre is our Bournemouth facility, which is built to a premium specification with a minimum N+1 configuration on connectivity, cooling and power. For more information on this site click here.
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November 23rd, 2011
Last month, we were ranked 52nd in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 which ranks Britain’s 100 fastest-growing private technology companies according to their sales growth, over a three year period. We were ranked alongside companies such as price comparison website Gocompare, and music recognition services provider Shazam. In order to qualify for the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 companies needed to be unquoted, independent and registered in Britain. The league table adopts the London Stock Exchange’s techMARK definition of what constitutes a technology company.
It’s a fantastic achievement to of been ranked within the Sunday Times Tech Track, and especially so, as we’re just one of five companies from the South West listed. Thanks go out to all of the team at C4L for their dedication and efforts over the last year.
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November 18th, 2011
Installations are being made every day here at our Bournemouth data centre, and the facility is really starting to take shape.
The latest addition to the facility is the installation of our switch gear.
Switch gear is a vital part of a data centre environment, as it connects all of the electrical systems together and distributes electricity from the mains or generators to the PDUs on the floor. Another benefit is that the switch gear allows us to monitor our power usage, meaning that we can keep one eye on energy efficiency whilst also ensuring that the usage of each piece of equipment is kept within its operating parameters.
The photo below shows what the switch gear looks like…
Tags: Bournemouth, C4L, Colocation, Data Centre
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November 17th, 2011
The next step in our Bournemouth data centre build is the installation of our Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus – or VESDA.
VESDA is a laser based smoke detector, which works by taking in air samples within the data centre and sampling the quality of that air. VESDA is far more advanced and efficient than any other kind of smoke detector, and is used extensively in situations where high smoke sensitivity is required – such as a data centre.
The picture below shows what the VESDA equipment looks like…
Tags: Bournemouth, C4L, Colocation, Data Centre
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