Datacentre
Foreshore’s primary offshore datacentre is housed in a purpose built facility on the outskirts of St Helier with a second located several miles away.
The primary datacentre sits on the communications fibres laid to France by The Jersey Electricity Company and is in close proximity to Jersey Telecom for other circuits. This provides for the most resilient communications design whilst providing the optimal communication speed in the most cost efficient manner. The two datacentres are linked by diverse fibre and wireless connections creating one logical network.
Power
The datacentre has two independent sources of electrical supply which feed two separate transformers.
Each supply is rated to run our full load therefore failure of one supply does not effect our service.
In the unlikely event of a failure of either supply Foreshore has backup power generation available. This consists of two quick start Gas Turbine Generators with a total output capacity of approximately 45 MW. Utilising locally stored Gas oil (or light fuel oil) there is an endurance of 10 to 20 days depending on load being supplied.
Two separate transformers provide two incoming 2.5MW feed into two sides of an LV distribution board. Power from both sides of this distribution board then provide power to Air conditioning and lighting circuits, and into the UPS systems which ultimately power client equipment in the offshore datacentre.
We currently have two advanced 250KVA UPS systems that feed the Critical Power Distribution Units (CPDUs) in the datacentres. The CPDUs supply UPS protected power to client racks and equipment over individually fused 20Amp radial circuits (two per rack).
This ensures that even minor power glitches do not effect customer equipment and in the unlikely event of a power failure power for 25 minutes which is five times the required amount to bring the generators to replace the failed supply.
The UPS infrastructure is designed to scale to eight 250KVA UPS systems as demand increases, with no requirements for any downtime to existing infrastructure as additional UPS’ are deployed
Atmosphere stabilisers
Our air-conditioning systems are configured in an n+1 arrangement which means that if one unit fails it can maintain the optimal temperature regardless of fluctuation in temperature outside. These systems help prevent instability due to over heating.
We use FM200 gas for fire suppression. It works on a two knock system and has separate zones for separate parts of the datacentre. The fire detection system has a mixture of optical and ionisation detectors under-floor and in the room.
We have a sophisticated system that activates alarms should any moisture be detected within the datacentre, this means that any potential water problems can be instantly identified, space located and acted upon accordingly.
Security
The building is protected at its perimeter and within the general office area by proximity card access.
Access to the datacentre can only be achieved by proximity card and PIN numbers combined. All visitors are required to sign in and abide by security rules installed to protect our clients’ assets.
All areas within the datacentre are monitored by CCTV cameras 24x7.
People
A mission critical technical infrastructure and design is only half the equation, the professionals who enable and manage both ours and our clients’ systems are the other half. Our dedicated staff of communications experts, operations team, consultants and sales staff works diligently to maintain and improve services.
We have personnel in our two premises all year round to monitor our offshore datacentres and respond immediately to any issues that may arise.
From the operations team and technical specialists to the executive team, we are committed to our client’s success.
Network
Our twin offshore datacentre design, unique in the offshore world, means that it has two points of presence for traffic to and from the datacentre. The two datacentres are on the same logical network providing the ultimate in resilience for those customers that require clustered solutions across two premises. Each datacentre has a number of ISP’s connecting to the Foreshore backbone with full BGP routing between them.
We have created this network to deliver enterprise class data storage and business continuity solutions that provide the highest level of data protection, enterprise recovery and on going management services. By using these methods and employing multi level security systems our infrastructure provides a virtual fortress for efficient and secure e-business and data storage.