As a colocation provider, whose target customers are in the finance, gaming and managed-services industries, IP House has to adhere to the highest standards of uptime, security and resiliency. It has designed and built the communications, power and cooling infrastructure at its London facility to provide a competitive and customer-focused colocation service.
“Uptime, security and service availability are our main priorities,” explained Vinny Vaghani, Operations & Commercial Manager, IP House. “With today’s businesses dependent on instant connectivity to critical applications hosted in the facility and a demand for technology that’s always available, our clients cannot tolerate any downtime or disruption.”
To offer high-end services while remaining price-competitive, the company follows a “pay as you grow” deployment strategy, scaling up to add infrastructure to satisfy customer demand. The 15,000 sq ft facility has two technical Data Suites, the first of which is now operational, with plans for the second suite to be brought online in the future.
Solution approach
Understanding IP Houses need for a scalable, resilient and secure data centre solution, APC’s Elite Partner Comtec Power worked with the company to deliver a retrofit and upgrade project at their London facility.
Working with Comtec enabled IP House to design and build the data centre to meet the requirements for Tier III classification. “Their insight and experience played a critical part in the company’s decision making,” said Vinny Vaghani, “ensuring that our future clients would continue to benefit from the most innovative technology solutions available in the market.”
“Comtec's expertise in design and build were unparalleled and invaluable.” he continued. “Their familiarity with data centre technology and proactive approach to customer support during the initial stages were one of the key reasons they were selected to work with us.”
“As the newest colocation market entrant we wanted to acquire and leverage both the experience and expertise of the partners supplying our critical infrastructure. We’ve always had a great relationship and single point of contact via Ian Gregg, Data Centre Specialist at Comtec Power.” Vinny continued. “This meant that at every stage of the project we were able to communicate our requirements with someone who understood our objectives from the customers perspective. That level of service was outstanding and is something they continue to provide us to this day.”
The data centre contains industry-leading infrastructure solutions including Schneider Electric’s Symmetra UPS, deployed in an N+1 configuration with 4x 500kVA to deliver rapidly scalable and resilient power options. In addition, IP House selected Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT, DMaaS platform for 24/7 advanced monitoring, management and data-driven insights.
IP House’s infrastructure deployment strategy is based around modular growth, utilising components of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure™ for Data Centers Architecture to scale up and add capacity as customer requirements demand it.
Suite A is comprised of 192 racks, all of which are Schneider Electric’s 48U NetShelter SX enclosures. These are larger than the standard industry size and allow the company to offer higher power densities and more scalability or space for IT equipment to customers. High-density racks maximise the use of available space in the data centre and also facilitate the use of containment solutions for efficient cooling operations, both of which result in energy efficiency and ultimately, reduced operating costs. Once operational Suite B will have its own independent plant room with a separate utility feed and an additional 320 racks, bringing the total to 512.
Edge Control ensures advanced management
Another key aspect of the facility is Schneider Electric’s StruxureWare for Data Centers™, Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software, which enables the infrastructure equipment to be monitored and managed from a “single pane of glass”, while providing seamless integration with the company’s building-management software.
IP House makes use of several Schneider Electric software modules and include Data Center Expert, which monitors alarm notifications and manages the physical infrastructure, reporting on availability, temperature, humidity and airflow to provide instant notification of any faults.
In addition, the company uses the StruxureWare for Data Centers, Data Center Operations Colocation Module to map the facilities physical infrastructure, plan future capacity, manage the network and map airflows to ensure sufficient cooling. Other benefits include the ability to model effects of changes in cooling equipment to the data centre environment and anticipate its potential impact on customers.
The final component of IP Houses software solution is Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT; the Industry’s first vendor-neutral Datacentre Management as a Service (DMaaS) architecture, purpose-built for the hybrid IT and data centre environments. It provides global visibility from anywhere, at any time on any device and delivers data-driven insights into critical IT assets, which helps customers mitigate risk and reduce downtime.
Results
Thanks to its deployment of industry-leading power and UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems, high-density racks and DCIM (data centre infrastructure management) software from Schneider Electric, IP House’s new data centre is a highly resilient facility that meets the requirements of a Tier III data centre, as defined by the Uptime Institute. It is therefore ideally equipped to meet the high-availability service demands of the company’s key customers.
IP House maintains that the reputation of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure architecture, coupled with the control and management features of the EcoStruxure IT platform provides a vital advantage when addressing the high-availability market that is its principal target.
“Our customers are always interested to know how we’re using Big Data analytics and advanced software to control and monitor the environment”, said Vinny Vaghani. “They know that our infrastructure is not only of the highest quality, but is proactively monitored and response is immediate in the event of an unplanned alert. None of which would be possible without utilising Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Data Centers architecture. It’s been an important factor in our decision making and one that we believe will benefit both our customers and business, long-term.”
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