Tag Archive for 'fibre'

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Progress at Centro datacentre

Published on February 19, 2009 in Centro fit-out and Pictures. 0 Comments Tags: cctv, centro, contractors, duct, fibre, fit out, lighting, power, roof, steels.

Our contractors have been hard at work on-site at our new Centro datacentre facility over the past week — working 12 hour days, including the weekends!

Progress has been fantastic, with the structural elements of the secure “pod” for the Switchgear Room and South Comms Room completed and the roof starting to go in, and work starting on the steels for our staff room, store and build rooms, North Comms Room and the first part of Hosting Suite 1:

First stage of roofing being fitted to Switchgear Room and South Comms Room

First stage of structural work on North Comms room and Hosting Suite 1

We’ve also started work on the ducting that will connect us to our HV power supplies and fibre network connection points:

Cutting the road surface for duct installation

Cutting the first 120m of road surface for duct installation

Laying duct and warning tape within the excavated trench

As we’re installing our own private duct work for the connections, our electricty providers have been on-site to inspect and approve the quality of the works:

Inspection of works by the electricity board

After only 1 days work, backfilling the trenching was started!

After only 1 day of work, our contractors started backfilling the trenching

We’ve also been installing a comprehensive external digital CCTV and PIR lighting system, with work going on late in to the evening:

Installation of external digital CCTV cameras

Quick update on fibre chambers and duct work at Centro

Published on February 2, 2009 in Centro fit-out and Pictures. 0 Comments Tags: centro, duct, fibre.

Work has continued on-site at Centro over the holiday period and in to the new year. More pictures soon, but here are a few to keep you going in the meantime…

World's coldest meeting room...

Reinstatement works complete at North fibre chamber

Fibre duct ready for installation

Installation of new fibre chambers at Centro

Published on December 12, 2008 in Centro fit-out and Pictures. 0 Comments Tags: centro, diversity, duct, fibre, road closure.

Work is under way by our contractors at the new facility to install our diverse dark fibre connections.

We are installing two diverse chambers on to our provider’s national fibre duct route, and running our own private diverse ducts back to separate North and South comms rooms within our Centro facility.

Here’s the South chamber:

Road closure for South fibre chamber installation

Starting work on the South fibre chamber

Here’s the North chamber. The separation distance between the two chambers is over 200m, giving excellent diversity.

Road closure for North fibre chamber installation

North fibre chamber installed and awaiting reinstatement works

First phase of fibre equipment for new datacentre site delivered

Published on November 10, 2008 in Centro fit-out and Pictures. 3 Comments Tags: centro, deliveries, expansion, fibre, network.

The first phase of the fibre equipment for our new “Centro” datacentre site in Hemel Hempstead arrived at our London offices today.

Fibre equipment delivery arrives on-site

Construction is under way on our new fibre network, consisting of nearly 160km of private dark fibre (G.652 and G655) in a redundant ring connection between two London datacentres (both existing core fibre POPs on our network) and our new Centro site. Latency back to London is predicted to be very low, with 0.3ms on the primary leg, and 0.4ms on the longer secondary leg.

16x10G DWDM multiplexer module

We’re using DWDM technology to multiplex up to 16x10G channels over each fibre pair – giving a total network capacity of 320G. Each 10G channel can be dedicated to a single 10GigE connection for a customer, split up in to multiple 1G channels for 1GigE networking requirements, or can handle multiple Fibre Channel connections for SAN use. The modules contain tunable DWDM lasers, allowing us to configure, in software, what wavelength each module will use on the fibre. This means we can keep one part as a spare and configure it for use on any channel for rapid deployment.

In-line amplifiers

Due to the redundant leg of the fibre ring being a longer distance, we regenerate the signal at a POP site using in-line amplifiers. These boost the signal strength across the entire DWDM channel range. This also gives us the opportunity to insert an add/drop module at this site in the future to bring in additional redundant connectivity outside of London.

Partially populated equipment chassis

The first phase of the equipment is now ready for testing. We will receive delivery of appropriate line cards for customer connections as we need them.