Hot racks and cool customers: Colocating in the capital

In a world where data centre duties are increasingly relocated to lower cost territories in the East and beyond, why would anyone want to set up shop in the heart of London? Even if there was a requirement for your data to be UK-based, surely a location in the shires where rents are lower would make sense. City Lifeline …

[Natalie Gritpants]

With that amount of diesel..

they could run a garage, would solve the problem of the diesel going off

[Callam McMillan]

Re: With that amount of diesel..

Given that it'll be red diesel, I think HMRC would have a bit of an issue with it. Not that annoying the revenue isn't fun, but you want to do it in a way that doesn't get you nicked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad...

All that security doesn't make a lick of difference when the NSA has it's own personal fibre-optic connection to every rack in the building.

[AMBxx]

Thank you

I used to visit server sites frequently to do software installations. Nowadays it's all done by remote desktop. Nice to see how things are done.

[K]

Thanks..

I'd highly recommend you get a tour of the SSE data center in Segensworth, the measures they have taken for resilient power is running in the realms of crazy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice ad

Nice ad for City Lifeline - but it's not exactly the most interesting dc operator to cover.

There are operators innovating in DC design - which actually constitutes news.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nice ad

Agreed - it seems like a pretty traditional (older generation) DC rather than the newer stuff people are building now - what's it PUE for example?

[Tom 38]

City datacentres are for the city boys with their financial data, or those who are too rich to care. Everyone else is either in docklands or in a real cheap DC on the outskirts of town, Park Royal, Slough, Gatwick - that sort of area.

PS: Looking at munin in the iphone browser is not an iphone app.

[Jay 11]

Pretty sure that was a data centre previously as I helped liquidate the old firm in there a bit over 10 years ago. They ran huge amount of Compaq gear back then.

I think it was called 'Crisscross communications' and they sold access all across Europe.

As the prievious infrastructure would already be in place it would explain why it is based there and not out at Docklands or some other low rent area.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Stuff's amazing

Reminds me of all the hours I spent installing kit in cramped racks with little support from the rest of the company. Real muscle stuff. Good times though.

The MTU diesel engine hails from Friedrichshafen, and was built in the old Zeppelin motor factory.

One of those VIIC diesels, I suppose?

[ewan 3]

Very intersting article

Interesting article, always wondered how these things work!

[Anonymous Coward]

"TDM has largely gone now, and most voice telephony is carried as TCP/IP packets on VoIP (voice over internet protocol)....

<cough, splutter>....excuse me?

Where do we begin pointing out the errors in that comment?

[Scaffa]

Well, the SIP signalling can be TCP but yeah the RTP is UDP all the way.

[batfastad]

amaze. wow.

much fisheye!