A description of each technical feature can be found below. If you have any queries or need advice please do not hesitate to contact us.
Uninterruptable Power Supply and Backup Generator
Our 400 KVA dedicated electricity supply was designed and installed to meet our diverse electrical needs. Power is routed through our lightning protection, Generator changeover panel and redundant UPSs before getting to the servers. This ensures that all power to the servers is supplied at a smooth rate.
Two 80 KVA Uninterruptible Power Supplies protect our network in cases of power failure, should the power to our network fail our high power UPS automatically takes the load of all the servers and network hardware. Our UPS system by UPS Power is a scalable, redundant power protection system for centralised servers, data centres and high availability applications.
As our second line of defence against power failure we have installed a 250 KW industrial generator, capable of supplying enough electricity to our entire data centre and office area for an indefinite period of time. This means that in the event of a major utility power failure your web site will still be available.
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Protection Systems
To guard against the threat of lighting (which could send spikes through the electricity supply and damage servers) we have installed a Furse lighting protection system. If an illegal spike is detected the system automatically takes this spike and destroys it. This system provides protection between all sets of conductors (phase to neutral, phase to earth and neutral to earth) ensuring total protection and closing all transient paths to equipment.
Should a fire break out in the data centre then our FM200 Fire Suppression System will be triggered, in seconds FM200 gas will be released into the room extinguishing the fire.
In the unlikely event that water leaks into the data centre then sensors throughout the area will detect the leak and sound the alarm to our staff.
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Cisco switches and routers
Our 100 MB network uses the reliability and high performance of Cisco hardware. Cisco are the world leaders in network hardware and our network core utilises Cisco Routers and Switches.
We use fully manageable Catalyst 3500 Series XL Switchs which are connected into two core Cisco 7200 routers which link to our array of four Cisco 3640 routers.
Our data centre is home to thousands of servers including Sun, IBM, Compaq, Dell and HP servers.
We host more RaQ4's in our data centre then any other hosting company in the UK, we have a special relationship with Cobalt Networks (a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems) that allows us to provide cutting edge support and service.
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Climate Control
Our data centre is equipped with powerful air conditioning to maintain a consistently controlled environment.
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Security Systems
Our data centre was constructed with security in mind, access to the data centre is restricted by swipe card access, it is also monitored by CCTV at all times.
Should any network component/server fail (such as a switch or router) our on site system engineers are automatically notified in screens throughout our network operations centre. By having staff on site 365 days of the year we are able to respond to system failures within the fastest time possible.
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High speed connections
Our connectivity comes through three separate providers giving us redundancy and high availability. Our three providers are:-
NTL,one of the UK's leading communications companies. With fibre based networks running through most of the UK they are in a unique position to offer a resilient Internet based network.
UUNET is the UK's largest backbone provider. UUNET currently have over 1000 Mbps of traffic going across and out of the UK, they guarantee high uptime and fast response times should their services fail.
The XO Network spans the world, with network and peering arrangements second to none. They provide enhanced connectivity between Europe and the US.
Their UK network connects directly into their own European network, with core routing centres in Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and Stockholm located in major traffic exchange centres such as AMSiX in Amsterdam and Telehouse in Paris.
Both of XO's London core routing centres connect into the US via two separately provisioned trans-Atlantic links of up to STM-4 (622Mb/s) capacity. The core US backbone consists of dual, cross connected links between major network nodes, with a secondary backbone of routing points in major cities with dual connections into the key backbone.
All three providers have invested millions into building reliable, sophisticated and redundant networks which allow us to offer a high web site availability to our clients. UUNET and XO deliver their bandwidth via the BT fibre network, fibre enters our building at different points to offer high levels of redundancy. NTL deliver their bandwidth on their own fibre based network again entering the building at different point to increase redundancy.
We aim to have at least 40% of our bandwidth free at any one time to allow for fluctuations and growth.
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