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News items.

by Matt Seaton

Alex Preston joins Netwise

We are very pleased to introduce you to the latest member of our ever-expanding team; Alex Preston.

Alex Joins Netwise

Alex is our new Facilities Manager, keeping our world-class data centres in tip-top operational shape for our rapidly growing roster of clients.

Alex joins us from a long-standing position with Atkins, the internationally recognised design and engineering firm famed for many large-scale projects worldwide. With him, he brings a wealth of experience in both corporate operations and design / engineering. Alex will be a valuable asset to Netwise in both the operational excellence of our facilities, as well as the design and build processes as we continue to fit out our London Central data centre to capacity, and critical involvement as we look ahead to future build projects.

You’ll find Alex working as part of our day management team, keeping our existing infrastructure working flawlessly for our customers, and developing new systems and techniques for future fit outs and various individual projects.

We will be continuing to expand our team as we head towards 2019. If you may be interested in technical roles in a vibrant data centre environment, please do get in touch with us.

by Matt Seaton

Full speed ahead for Data Hall 1 cooling system

This summer, we’ve been hard at work taking the high-tech cooling system in Data Hall 1 to its final specification, ready for full capacity.

Our entire facility follows a modular build methodology, which includes our unique evaporative cooling system. Everything is installed in A+B resilient pairs, which includes the cooling stack design employed at our London Central data centre. These act as the lungs of our data centre, breathing cool air into the overhead plenum.

Until now, we’ve had lot’s of headroom on the existing two stacks, comprised of four wet box units. Last summer, we rolled out a fully-integrated AC system to supplement this evaporative units, both for added operational resilience, as well as further cooling capacity should it be required.

Intake Fan

Each of our stacks have intelligently controlled intake fans and active damping

We’ve now added the final two stacks to the system in Data Hall 1, taking our cooling capacity to maximum load. This further improves resilience on the system as a whole, and also provides a great deal of additional cooling as we continue to welcome new customers into our world-class data centre.

CREC Units

Our unique, highly-efficient cooling stack design

Part of this additional capacity includes the tripling of available extraction outlets, which gives us greater control over the pressure differential between hot and cold aisles.

At full speed we are now able to move 208,000 cubic metres of four-times filtered, climate controlled air through Data Hall 1 per hour. That’s a lot of air, creating a flow of freshly tempered air which refreshes hall-wide every 45 seconds (on average).

Extraction

Our extraction capabilities have been heavily bolstered

Extraction Fans

We now have nine high-powered extraction fans

Further to this, we’ve also installed a new probe matrix overhead, meaning we now have temperature and humidity mapping capabilities across the entire data hall floor. This both feeds into the control systems which manage the cooling system, as well as our own monitoring and management systems for greater insights into heat and flow control.

Later this year, we’ll also be adding in further granular monitoring on the circuits which feed our cooling systems, which will allow us to see our PUE as it dynamically adjusts in real-time.

The cooling system in Data Hall 1 is now at full capacity, which is fantastic news as our ever-growing roster of clients continue to deploy new systems in our facilities.

Learn more about our world-class London Central data centre.

by Matt Seaton

Introducing: Workplace Recovery London

Workplace Recovery London

This month we soft-launched our new Workplace Recovery London brand.

WRL will provide direct focus to our fully-serviced disaster recovery suite, which offers organisations simple, subscription-based peace of mind through the instant availability of our work area recovery service.

Accessibility is the primary driver behind the WRL concept, giving SMEs access to high-quality workplace recovery services that were once the domain of only the very largest organisations.

The suite can cater for up to 40 users with complete turnkey availability, providing access to workstations, VOIP phones, printing and scanning, wifi and other on-site amenities.

Located inside our award-winning London Central data centre, the suite is in a prime location for quick and easy access from all corners of London, and ensures a healthy distance from the capital’s ‘at risk’ zones.

Disaster Recovery Suite

Being housed within a data centre has benefits that extend beyond direct access to the digital side of disaster recovery. It also provides a level of resilience not found in traditional office recovery centres. The Workplace Recovery London suite is backed by the facility generator systems, meaning it is immune from mains failures. The building is also serviced with super-resilient connectivity for always-on service availability.

Our DR suite makes fully-featured workplace recovery affordable for everyone, not only those with more demanding high-commit requirements. It also extends possibilities for smaller organisations to more comprehensively comply with ISO 22301 standards.

Prices start from just £20.00 per month per desk.

If you’d like to learn more about our DR suite, please visit the Workplace Recovery London website, or indeed our own website.

by Matt Seaton

DADI partners with Netwise

This month we announced an exciting new partnership with DADI.

We are very proud to be DADI’s infrastructure partner, providing our full remit of mission-critical data centre services as their new blockchain-enabled decentralised cloud platform goes to market.

Our network will be powering the core backbone of the decentralised platform, with multi-site services providing an ultra-resilient framework for the new system.

Given the power usage associated with blockchain technology, DADI are also pleased to be working with an operator who take sustainability seriously. Our London Central data centre operates on 100% renewable energy.

“Netwise has been supporting the DADI network since the early days of prototyping and testing, so it is a logical evolution for them to formally lend their expertise as advisors during our next phase of development.”
Joseph Denne, founder and CEO of DADI

The collaboration will bring industry insight, consultation and support during the roll-out of the DADI network in 2018. It will also provide spare capacity for the network as it grows, ensuring performance at scale.

“We are very happy to be supporting DADI as they go to market with their innovative new decentralised cloud platform. As avid supporters of bleeding-edge technologies, we are very much looking forward to helping DADI develop this system by supporting their growing core infrastructure requirements.”
Matt Seaton, Senior Manager at Netwise Hosting

The DADI crowdsale took place this month (DADI token ICO), the results of which will be used to progress their projected roadmap, which is already ahead of schedule.

 

More information on DADI

For further information on DADI, please visit: https://dadi.cloud.

by Matt Seaton

A look back at 2017

Time certainly flies, as we’re already bidding farewell to another successful year here at Netwise.

2017 has been a year of substantial investment here at our London Central data centre and headquarters. This is in keeping with our ongoing commitment to constant reinvestment, which we maintain for the improvement of our facilities and the experience of our customers.

Reception

Over the course of the past 12 months, we’ve invested enormously in our infrastructure, upholding our position as London’s leading independent data centre operator, a position we will sustain as we continue to meet growth forecasts here in the capital.

The key projects undertaken this year include:

  • Data Hall 1 Expansion – bringing Pod 3 online, and readying Pods 4 & 5
  • Switch to Renewable – all electricity now from renewable sources
  • Power Capacity – upgrade of transformers to double on-site capacity
  • Generator Supply – on-site diesel storage increased by 3,000 litres
  • V3 Network – deployment of new ASR9k routing fabric
  • IX and Carriers – turn up of LINX services, peering, and additional carriers
  • Looking Glass – deployment of new network testing interface
  • Perimeter Compound – full enclosure of facility with razor wire and turnstile
  • Additional Cooling – supplementary / supporting A/C system
  • ISO Accreditation – 9001 & 27001
  • Customer Amenities – the launch of our new Customer Lounge and DR Suite
  • Plus Additional Projects – countless smaller projects throughout the year

As you can see, we’ve been very busy.

This has all happened alongside our continued operation in the delivery of world-class data centre services to our ever-growing roster of enterprise clients, now spread across 13 countries.

We will enter 2018 with an additional 35% rack capacity in Data Hall 1, and a clear road map for both the continued deployment of the remaining capacity in Data Hall 1 and the development of Data Hall 2.

 

The switch to renewable energy

The largest single story of 2017 was undoubtedly our switch to renewable energy here at our London Central facility.

This holds a more prominent place in the story of our development this year, as not only was it a positive step forward for our organisation and our customers, but also for the sustainability of our planet.

By 2025, it is expected that 1/5th of the world’s power consumption will be drawn by data centres, with 100 billion connected devices anticipated globally. While that in itself is very positive for the future of this industry, it also highlights the responsibility we have in leading the push to renewable energy.

You can learn a little more about why this was such an important move for us here:

 

Looking ahead

There are already a number of highly interesting projects lined up for the year to come, including some pioneering new technologies that may well pave the way for the future of data centre services everywhere.

Despite our sizeable investments over the past 12 months, we’ve maintained our fantastic profitability ratio, which lays the groundwork for another impressive year in 2018.

Until then, we’d like to wish all of our stakeholders a very happy holiday season, and a fantastic New Year.