Their new facility in Manchester will provide Internet Central customers with a more efficient and thus cost-effective data centre offering the company’s growing number of business customers increased resilience, additional transit and reduced network complexity. It also means that because of the latest gigabit technology in use it will provide substantial growth opportunities in the future.
The move by Internet Central to Manchester was developed in response to ongoing demand by the company’s clients for more resilience and protection, more diversity and faster speeds for internet and intranet access. Internet Central’s customers say their priorities are the delivery of a securely hosted IT infrastructure with maximum uptime and high standards of service at a competitive price. The new facilities offered by the Data Centre are an extension of their service offering as the company recognises that businesses today need high-power, high specification data centre facilities for the newest applications and increased levels of storage capacity.
Internet Central operates an N+1 uptime policy, which requires redundant and resilient power protection. The Manchester Data Centre has high security and is closely monitored by Internet Central around the clock by automated management systems, CCTV and on site security guards. The centre features N+1 redundancy with 2 x 2MVA diesel generators with 8 days of on-site fuel storage in case of power failure.
The new data centre will also act as Internet Central’s primary connectivity point for their new National Ethernet connectivity services based on BT’s 21CN platform with direct connections to their broadband network, 3 international tier 1 transit providers, direct peering with all major UK operators and content providers such as the BBC and Microsoft.
Dave Thorpe, Operations Director at Internet Central comments: “We recognised the need to enhance our existing infrastructure in order to further improve services for customers. The move to the new data centre will increase our service offering and capability tenfold. When choosing the location of the new data centre we looked at various options and chose Manchester over London for many reasons. Businesses storing critical data and confidential information need to be able to access this data following any eventualities. There is the issue of electricity supply in London, which may occur when there is a drop in the voltage being supplied by the electricity grid, caused by electricity demand exceeding the available supply. This issue will only get worse when events like the 2012 Olympic Games take place. By choosing a data centre like Manchester, our customers can get more facilities and services for less cost as well as greater security, improved reliability and a faster data connection.”
In undertaking the move to the new data centre Internet Central has also completely replaced their infrastructure with the latest switches, the latest routers and added additional servers and storage to their virtual hosting capacity.