ITnews Data Centre

The ITnews data centre is situated in Harbour Exchange, in the heart of London’s Docklands development. It was the first to be accredited as a LINX Advanced Expansion Site and is a world-class facility, meeting the highest possible standards for security, redundancy and data integrity.

Using the latest construction methods, Harbour Exchange was built to service the stringent demands of the financial services sector, and boasts exceptional facilities. ITnews is closely monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and the data centre has redundant systems for connectivity, power outages, fire suppression and air conditioning, as well as rigorous security systems, attack prevention and full backup and disaster recovery.

Physical Environment

Building Security

Round-the-clock manned reception and security
CCTV surveillance 24x7
Swipe card and PIN access control
One-in, one-out double-locking doors
Weight-sensitive floors to monitor movements
Forced entry alarm system on all doors

Electrical Power

Power feed (6MVA) direct from a local London Electricity primary sub-station
Bank of regulatory static UPS for redundancy
In the unlikely event of mains failure, UPS has more than enough power for the entire building at full capacity
Within two minutes dedicated generators take the load (backed up by a Priority 1 fuel contract, as used by the emergency services)

Fire Prevention

State-of-the-art fire detection and suppression systems, ensuring that any fire is detected and extinguished before it takes hold
Ultra-sensitive smoke detection system (VESDA)which measures extremely low concentrations of smoke to detect fires at their earliest stages
Air is continuously sampled and the invisible by-products of materials as they degrade during the pre-combustion stages of a fire are detected
FM200 fire suppression gas discharges system to extinguish fires, effective within 10 seconds of discharge

Network and Service

Performance Specifications

Minimum network availability of 99.97%
Maximum delay time of 300 ms in Europe and 500 ms in the USA
Maximum packet loss of 2% in any 24 hours

Connectivity

Three major network connections, through three separate carriers for redundancy:
- Primary STM 1 (100 Mbit) connected to one of Europe’s larget backbones
- Second connection (155 Mbit throttled to 45 Mbit) peered through BGP4, preventing single point of carrier failure
- Tertiary fallover connection is provided by Level 3 (10/100 base TX)
Cisco 7206 and 12000 VXR core routers enable high performance BGP and packet routing
HP Procurve switches for high performance data transfer
Security managed by Cisco PIX 520UR firewalls, then through IP Tables and Linux-based firewalls
SNORT and TripWire are also implemented for intrusion detection and packet analysis

Server Environment

Server environment conforms to the highest industry specifications
Server contained within fire-resistant walls and flooring
Bomb-proof windows
Precise air conditioning and temperature control systems
Power, air conditioning, security and fire detection and suppression systems feature N+1 fail-over and redundancy
Heavy duty flooring capable of withstanding 32 Kilo-Newtons/m²

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Retrospect used to take a full snapshot of server data with daily incremental snapshots
Weekly snapshot of SCSI array backed up to tape, rotated by Dell PowerVault autoloaders running fibre connection to central core switch
Monitoring and alarms of incomplete backups
Data copies held in London and Chicago
Complete copies of data also held in secure off-site locations
Disaster recovery provided by SGRS (Schluberger Sema)