August 10, 2020August 10, 2020 by Matt Seaton

London East Build Blog – Weeks 16 and 17

Another two weeks are now in the books at NLE, with plenty of progress to report as we head further into the envelope construction.

Weekly overview

We’ve made great progress on our new compound perimeter security fencing, with our huge sliding vehicle access gate now in place. This joins the new pedestrian access gate, with the installation of our turnstile coming up next (after being sandblasted and powder coated in our desired shade).

There have also been many bodies on-site as works continue on the envelope, both for development meetings and for some minor adjustments to the mezzanine before the walls begin to go in later this month.

Busy — Another busy fortnight at NLE, with many engineers and consultants on-site

Fence — A look at one of the more complex parts of the new perimeter fencing

Rooflight Blanks — These sheets of insulation will be used to blank off the skylights, in the same way this was handled as NLC

Stairs — The main access staircase for the mezzanine had its full checkerplate and up stands installed this week

As you can see, we’ve had another great couple of weeks at NLE. The intense heat did delay some of the fencing installation, but progress was not hindered much at all, as we’ve spent lots of time on planning and orchestration of the next phase – that being walling.

The rear compound will also receive the full security enclosure treatment in the coming weeks, along with full razor wire to both sides of the facility, taking us to full enclosure of the site. We’ll also be fitting the motor to the main sliding gate in the near future, which will be tied into our access control system, along with the turnstile.

What’s next?

Towards the end of this month, our walling contractors will be on-site to begin splitting the facility into its final layout, including all four data halls and associated plant rooms / customer amenities.

We’ll also be continuing with works outside the facility, by completing the full perimeter.

August 3, 2020August 19, 2020 by Matt Seaton

7 questions to ask before choosing a data centre in London

If you’re in the market for data centre services, there are a number of prerequisite questions to ask yourself and your future provider before
settling on the right service.

1. How secure is your data?

One of the first questions you should ask when choosing a data center in London is how secure your data will be. Being able to connect to your server securely is essential.

You should always ask how the company can help you to secure your information. While you want to be able to access your files and information with ease, hackers certainly shouldn’t.

Make sure you understand how the organisation can assist you in properly securing your critical data. Then you can determine how safe your data will be when you move your equipment into the data centre.

The right data company won’t have a problem disclosing their own network security practices. Once you learn about the process, you can decide if the company is the best choice for you, or whether you’re best looking elsewhere.

2. How reliable are they?

While your data’s security is of the utmost importance, you also need to access that data around the clock. You need to ensure your systems are immune from outages, and remain online regardless of any external factors.

A reliable data centre provider will use emergency backup generators to prevent any loss of power. That way, you won’t lose your connection during the middle of your workday, should there be external power issues at the facility.

When you send your information to a data centre, you risk not having full control. So after you ask about security, you should always ask about system reliability.

3. How flexible or scaleable are they?

If you’re looking to use a data centre, you should consider how flexible their services are. Your business may take on new projects or systems, and you want your facility operator to handle that with ease.

Even if you operate as a relatively small company, you never know when you’ll need to grow your business. You may have a sudden spike in customers or orders.

When that happens, you may need to house more equipment in your data centre. If you can’t grow your systems with a data center in London, you won’t be able to use it for very long.

4. What’s the capacity like?

Along with service flexibility, you should also consider the available connectivity capacity. Some data companies may have a firm limit on the amount of data you can transmit.

If you exceed your committed rate, you may need to upgrade, or be liable for overage charges.

5. Where is the data center in London?

You should also consider the location of the data center in London. When looking for a suitable facility, it doesn’t have to be right by your current office (in fact, it’s best that it isn’t).

However, if you ever need to visit your servers in person, the location will be important; it shouldn’t be too far away.

The location is also important in terms of accessing your information remotely. A closer data centre will make the connection quicker for certain types of critical, latency-sensitive data.

If you don’t need to access your service at lightning speed, you may be able to use a facility that’s farther away, particularly for DR. But if you need to access data in a second, you’ll want the service to be close by.

6. How secure is the facility?

Overall, London is a safe city, but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to crime. You should also consider how a data company is securing physical infrastructure.

If they have a physical security system, consider how strong it is. Ask if they’ve ever had a physical attack on their systems.

See how secure the entry points are, along with entry to the data halls themselves. Make sure there’s some level of protection for your data.

7. Do they offer customer support?

When considering a data center in London, think about the available customer support options. You should be able to contact the company whenever you have issues.

Whether you can’t get to your data or you suspect there’s a power issue, you should be able to contact your provider and get the help you need.

Ideally, customer support would be available at all hours of the day. After all, you may need to access your information in the middle of the night.

You’ll want to ensure that there is a highly experienced team in charge of the facility, who can help you with support enquiries at any time.

Don’t be afraid to ask about the customer support team and the experience of individual team members.

The best data center in London

When searching for the best data center in London, you want to consider a few factors. Asking questions can be a great way to determine if a company is right for you.

From determining the location to the security of the data centre, you can use that information to make the best decision for your business.

Want to start looking at a data center in London? Check out our London Central location and book a tour.

July 24, 2020July 24, 2020 by Matt Seaton

London East Build Blog – Weeks 14 and 15

After a real flurry of activity during the main mezzanine installation, the last two weeks have been a little more restrained in terms of visual change, as the majority of our time and effort has been spent orchestrating the next phase of the project.

We’ve spent time otherwise completing additional works ahead of the internal walling and access fit-out, which will be the next major milestone here at the new data centre.

Weekly overview

Aside from lots of time spent in meetings with our structural engineers, service coordinators, electrical contractors and other critical contributors to the NLE project, we’ve predominantly seen the most visual change at the front of the facility over the past 10 working days.

Our new high-security perimeter fence has started to take shape. This will largely match the specification of the compound perimeter found at NLC; that being a 2.4M palisade design, with overhead razor wire.

The difference here is that we’ve actually been able to retain some of the existing posts, designing custom post extensions to allow for a much taller border, and a faster installation.

We’re also adding a matching pedestrian turnstile, along with a gargantuan 6M sliding access gate for vehicles. This will be a whopping 3M high, to match the full height of the razor wired compound.

The rear of the facility will be following suit, with large 3M pedestrian access and fire escape gates, along with rear security fence extensions and razor wire, to match the much larger front compound.

Mezz — The underside of the mezzanine received a full post-install floor clean and polish – you can also see the large 6M sliding gate and corresponding posts stored in this shot!

We’re very pleased with this progress as we continue to push towards the end of month four on-site at NLE.

We’ve been extremely pleased with our approach to the main compound fence runs. While the front side of the compound will require more in the way of new posts and additional hardware, the custom extensions have proved a great success in quickly deploying the main runs using existing posts, which have already been dug in to the subsurface.

The final consultative actions on the walls, doors and custom machine plinths are scheduled for next week, meaning this next phase of the build will be underway shortly. This will split the facility into its various rooms and fire zones for the first time.

What else has been happening?

We’ve continued with further roll-out of our new core node at CLL this past week. While there’s not much to show visually, as much of this involved logical work on our 100G+ ring, we did want to show our new custom MUXs, which are fully branded, and have new shuttered connectors.

CLL MUX — Our new branded 40 channel multiplexers

All future MUX additions and/or replacements will be our new branded variants, which we’re excited to be partnering directly with the manufacturer for!

What’s next?

Aside from the forward-looking continuation of the main envelope, our own team will be pushing ahead with development on later-stage plans for the installation of containment and associated systems.

We’ll also be moving onto the parts of the perimeter fencing that include the turnstile and the large sliding gate, which are certainly more complex additions to the compound.

July 20, 2020July 24, 2020 by Matt Seaton

What is colocation, and how does it work?

As your business grows, so too will your IT-related needs. Instead of automatically choosing to house multiple private servers on-site (that take up lots of room and energy), you may wish to consider other solutions to this problem.

One possible workaround is colocation. So, what is colocation, and how does it work?

What is colocation?

Colocation is a way of housing privately-owned servers and networking equipment off-site, in a third-party data centre.

Instead of the traditional scenario whereby your business may have a separate office or basement area to keep your servers, your business can rent space in a third-party location to safely and securely house your critical IT equipment.

There are many examples of successful, high-growth enterprises choosing this option. Take, Catchpoint, Krystal Hosting, and EveryCity, as prime examples.

Why colocation?

In short, it’s a positive and cost-effective alternative to cloud-based systems and onsite storage. Colocation enables total control over your own servers and equipment, and you have the freedom to pick a location that is most convenient to you.

It also addresses the perennial problems that many UK businesses have: lack of space.

The European Office Outlook report found that businesses are increasingly using more flexible office space solutions. This includes taking space on a per-desk basis.

In situations like this, space is at a premium. As such, colocation offers a practical solution to server storage to meet this need.

The idea has grown in popularity in the UK, with anticipated industry growth of almost 7% between 2015 and 2020.

Not only that, but using a colocation service provides direct access to resilient, high-bandwidth connectivity, redundant power and cooling systems, top-level security, and excellent 24×7 technical support.

Data centres are a far more reliable option over housing servers on-site, because they offer greater protection across all areas of technical operation, something not found to the same degree in-house.

What about safety and security?

Colocation data centres are an extremely secure choice for your critical systems. Typically, there will be CCTV monitoring, biometric access control, uninterruptible power supplies, fire detection, and highly efficient cooling systems.

There will also be backup generators in the unlikely event of unforeseen area-wide power outages.

The right colocation centre will have a highly trained support team that offers technical assistance, security and surveillance 24/7/365.

With corporate and charity data breaches on the rise, finding a secure colocation centre for your data is essential.

In fact, the latest cybersecurity breaches survey for the UK showed almost half of businesses in the UK (46%) and a quarter of charities (26%) reported data breaches or attacks in the past year.

How does it work?

A good data centre gives its clients the choice of various flexible configurations that best suit their needs. One thing that colocation isn’t is a one-size-fits-all solution.

There are several space options available, whatever the size of your organisation:

1 Unit, 2 Unit or 4 Unit Colocation – 1U/2U/4U

These are individual rack units tailored to suit businesses of different sizes; it’s possible to choose or upgrade storage needs as the company expands. There are many package configurations available depending upon the number of units required.

The 1U option is seen as an “entry-stage” choice where your company installs a single server in a shared cabinet.

Quarter rack colocation and half rack colocation

Quarter rack colocation is ideal for smaller businesses or startups with smaller systems. This option offers 10U of colocation space in a private and locked cabinet.

Half rack colocation is a mid-range option, offering 20U of secure colocation space. It’s a perfect choice for businesses that are expanding or planning on expanding, and have larger deployments.

Full rack colocation

This is a 42U cabinet option; an entire rack dedicated to one business. It’s designed for companies with larger systems that need more room to grow. Full rack colocation also comes with higher power availability.

Is it cost-effective?

In short, yes it is.

Managing systems internally means businesses are responsible for any major or even minor expenses and variables. Not only does this take time, but it means recruiting new teams on top of employees who are managing daily business operations.

Will my business stay connected?

One of the biggest reasons businesses choose colocation at a data centre is because they guarantee you will stay connected. Their infrastructure means that you don’t have to invest in your own core network to accommodate your high-uptime requirements.

Colocation centres offer access to fully diverse, high-capacity networks, with direct connection capabilities to more than 500 service providers and carriers, and the best global routes and routing technologies.

Interested in colocation for your business?

We hope now having read this article, you now know the answer to the question: what is colocation?

If you’d still like to find out more, please feel free to contact our friendly team today.

If you’re interested in booking a free tour of our London data centres, get in touch. We look forward to speaking with you soon!

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 by Matt Seaton

London East Build Blog – Week 13

What a transformation we’ve seen this week at the NLE data centre project. The main mezzanine is now in place, ready to receive walls, doors, raised floors and ceilings, which will form the data halls and all other technical spaces. The true scale of the build has now begun to show itself.

What was once an empty, blank canvas of a building is now well on its way to becoming our newest flagship London data centre.

Weekly overview

This week, we’ve had two teams on-site installing our new heavy-duty mezzanine system. This system was designed here in the UK by our structural engineering contractor, and manufactured in Sweden.

Quite remarkably, this structure went up in just 3.5 days. That’s the entirety of the steel work, and nearly 20 tons of surface boarding, in a little over half a week.

Delivery — The first of three articulated lorries arrive on-site from Sweden

The visual change on-site over the last five days has been incredible. This is set to continue, as we look ahead to the full envelope installation, which will present us with the final building layout.

What you’re looking at here is a 470 square meter mezzanine floor, designed to support 450 tons, but with a max design loading of around 700 tons.

This will be holding up the two first floor data halls, along with service corridors, build and breakout rooms, and a fully-featured DR suite to match that on-site at NLC.

The underside will house a further two data halls, plus our heavy plant and electrical switchgear rooms.

We couldn’t be happier with the outcome of this tranformative phase of the project, and while we are acutely aware of the work that still lays before us, we’re extremely happy to see such a major milestone reached.

Our time lapse camera has been running throughout this phase of the build, so we’ll be pushing out a quick cut of the process soon.

What’s next?

Next up, will be the walling and door / access installation, which will fully zone off each area. There may be a week or two of layover ahead of this installation, so there will be plenty more supplementary works ongoing throughout this time.