It’s been another very busy stint of work over at Netwise London East, as we continue to deploy Data Hall 3 and Data Hall 4.
While we’ve taken a relatively lengthy break from the #BuildBlog since the last update, the same cannot be said for the development schedule itself, which has been continuing at pace without pause.
Let’s get straight to the photo updates:
This all sits alongside a whole host of additional organisation-wide projects, which includes the full upgrade of our entire core network, across all on-net locations. This will see the staged upgrade of all routing assets on our core network, to cope with ever-increasing demand from our clients. Telehouse has already been undertaken, with our London East site to follow in the next couple of weeks. Equinix LD8 will follow shortly thereafter.
We’ve also had another major round of development work undertaken on our customer portal. This predominantly concerns the backend of the system, with a custom IPAM administration and deployment module now live. We also have additions to the client-side coming very soon, which will improve the booking, tracking and handling of deliveries.
We’re tantalisingly close to announcing some very significant expansion news, but we’ll have to hold back on that for a little while longer – keep an eye on announcements in the coming weeks / months.
We’ve been reasonably quiet with the #BuildBlog of late, with focus squarely on the deployment of additional capacity at London East, leaving little room for deep dives into progress (unfortunately!).
But we’re now back with this latest instalment, as we begin tracking progress on Data Halls 3 and 4.
Looking back on our last instalment of the build blog, Data Hall 2 was still very much under construction. This space is now fully fitted out as a private data hall for a single client, and is now under occupancy.
We’ve also got plenty of other updates to report across a range of areas within our London East facility, thanks to an ongoing development programme which extends beyond footprint capacity alone.
Let’s move onto the update photos. This first set were actually taken back in June, however the next instalment of the build blog ended up getting significantly delayed, so here they are:
Now we can catch up in time to where things stand today, with the next run of photos from the past couple of weeks – apologies for any gaps in progress, we’ve been very busy!
As you can see, despite the delay in getting this build blog instalment posted, we’ve been rather busy.
We’ll continue to get our head down with development work on the run up to the new year, as demand for our services remains exceptionally high. We hope to have another update prepared for our avid readers in the next couple of months.
We also have some further news on the horizon with regards to continued expansion, which we hope to be releasing early next year. Needless to say, we’re very excited for what 2024 will bring.
Progress continues with Phase 2 development works at Netwise London East (NLE), as we head into the warmer summer months.
Data Hall 2 is approaching completion, which will be another fantastic milestone to reach in the total development journey of our newest facility. There have been solid advancements made in all aspects of the Data Hall 2 roll-out, with the most notable being the progress made on power and cooling infrastructure.
As before, we’ll keep things brief, and move straight onto the progress shots:
Further to the visual updates above, the supplementary / backup air conditioning system is also nearing the point of commissioning, with the pipework installation underway, following the same routes as with the system for Data Hall 1.
Once Data Hall 2 is livened up in terms of the power delivery system(s), the full commissioning works for the primary and secondary cooling systems can begin, which will bring the room to the point of safe occupancy (pending the fitout of the containment Pods, of course!).
We’ve been extremely pleased with progress on-site in the last few weeks. One thing that continues to shine through above all else is the quality of the work, which is something we and our clients alike have come to expect from a Netwise data centre. Every detail is carefully considered, resulting in a truly remarkable facility that we can be proud of for many years to come.
Working Phase 2 around an already active data centre has added additional challenges, not felt during Phase 1 (whereby the site was unoccupied by client deployments). While none of the works undertaken as part of Phase 2 pose any risk to live client services, there are many considerations to bear for enabling continued client access while many areas of the facility are being actively worked on.
We’ve been making steady progress on Phase 2 of our deployment plan at Netwise London East (NLE). This includes the total completion of Pod 2 in Data Hall 1, and large strides towards the onlining of Data Hall 2 in the coming months. This will be followed shortly thereafter with the base infrastructure deployment for Data Halls 3 and 4 later in the year.
We’ve been moving ahead firmly across various areas of general infrastructure, electrical and cooling systems for Data Hall 2, with the primary evaporative cooling system now in place ahead of commissioning. The feeder connections from the LV rooms to the in-hall distribution boards are now also in place, ahead of the main electrical works for the diverse rack feeds beginning in the coming weeks.
We’ll keep things brief this time around, so let’s get straight to the update photos:
We now have a dedicated roof hatch system installed over the storage mezzanine, for easier, direct access to the roof, which is important for speedy access to our heat extraction loop. We’ll update readers with photos of this area next time around.
We’re expecting to see a dramatic uptick in progress on Data Hall 2 in the next few weeks, as we head towards the peak activity period which will enable occupation of the space. This will also provide some additional visual change to enable a more in-depth update, which is something which has been lacking since the completion of Phase 1 – we apologise to our regular Build Blog readers for this!
We’re now a little way into Phase 2 of development here at our London East data centre, with good progress made across a number of areas throughout the facility since our last update.
The deployment of Pod 2 in Data Hall 1 is well underway, with all racks now positioned and bayed, and with the first tenants in the space already deploying live kit. The complete containment system is now being installed, which will bring the capacity expansion project within Data Hall 1 to a close.
Beyond this, further work has been undertaken as part of the Data Hall 2 expansion project, as we prepare for that space to take initial occupancy in the early stages of 2023.
Aside to the data halls, we’ve also seen developments elsewhere, such as the onlining of our new lift, the installation of our new gates and razor wire system to the rear compound fencing, our new Naturewall welcome screen in the speed gate entranceway, and additional development work undertaken on our customer portal.
The Build and Break Room has also seen notable advances towards its completion and full opening, which is something we’re very excited about. We’ll be continuing to keep this under wraps for the time being, and will publish a separate update about this once ready for use.
We’ll get straight to it with the photos:
Progress is expected to pick up as we head towards Christmas, with several weeks of additional activity planned for the back half of November, which will focus on continued work inside of Data Hall 1, along with further preparatory works as part of the Data Hall 2 onlining process.
We’ll also be rolling out some new features on our customer portal and back-end systems, with further news to follow in that regard when suitable.