our data centre
Making the connection
BlueFibre have partnered with Brisbane based data centre, Sanity Technology which is a custom built facility with an exquisite attention to detail, providing high capacity power and cooling requirements up to 15kW per rack that delivers hosting capabilities rarely seen elsewhere in the Australian datacenter industry. This provides the necessary framework for corporations who demand support for ever increasing IT infrastructure requirements, such as high density blade centers and super-computer systems.
Location
The facility is located within a modern building in Fortitude Valley, on the fringe of the Brisbane CBD. The building provides easy access, with onsite parking, delivery and service bay, internal lift, basement parking and staging storage space for delivery of IT equipment.
Technology
The InfraStruXure© datacenter solution provided by APC was chosen for the facility as it fully integrates electricity, cooling, security, rack cabinets and management services in a scalable fashion. The on-demand architecture provides an efficient modular design that can be expanded upon in a streamlined fashion allowing the datacenter to scale as technology evolves. This means that the data centre facility can scale to meet the power and cooling demands of cutting-edge IT environments today, and in the future.
UPS
Complimenting the InfraStruXure© solution, APC Symmetra PX 160kW UPS systems are utilized with integrated power distribution system and additional battery banks providing up to several hours of runtime rather than mere minutes. These ultra modern UPS systems are configured for N+1 redundancy ensuring clean power delivery by filtering the electricity supply protecting valuable equipment at all times, even when running on generator power.
Symmetra PX is a world class, redundant, scalable power protection system designed to provide high levels of availability. It seamlessly integrates with today's state-of-the-art data centre designs with a true modular system serving the role of the core power train that drives the facility.
In addition to extended run-time availability from the Symmetra UPS systems, diesel generators sets supplied by CATERPILLAR® Power Systems provides continued power supplied in emergencies, such as a major local supply outage.
Cooling
Boasting the highest cooling density available in the industry utilizing APC's InRow air-conditioning units, BlueFibre can provide up to a massive 20kW of cooling per rack. While our competitors typically provide a maximum of 3.5kW (15A) per rack thereby restricting the growth of their clients, we demonstrate our commitment to providing a future proof solution to the marketplace so that our clients can grow with us.
Efficiency
Being the 21st century it makes sense that a data center facility would be built with the utmost efficiency in mind. Sadly, many facilities overlook efficiency considerations during the build process and become power hungry over-polluting electricity guzzlers.
Efficiency has always been a top priority for us, leading to the adoption of cutting-edge thermal containment with APC's Hot Aisle Containment System (HACS). The HACS system provides air containment by separating the cool air supplied to IT equipment and the resulting hot air that is expressed. By preventing the mixture of hot and cool air a significant increase in efficiency, capacity and predictability of the cooling system is provided. Furthermore, cool air is not wasted by cooling the surrounding air within the facility, strictly delivering cool air only to the IT equipment within the facility.
Another simplistic efficiency measure in place is the insulation of all four walls within the facility. This includes a solid fire-rated wall over floor to ceiling glass windows, completely cutting out the warm-sunlight experienced in the sunshine state of Queensland.
Fire Suppression
A suitable fire detection system is a necessity in the modern datacenter, and our facility is certainly no exception. The well-known VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus) system is in use, which works by continually drawing air into a pipe network with a high efficiency aspirator. The pipe network collects throughout the facility which then passes through a dual stage filter. The first stage removes dust and dirt from the air sample before it allows the sample to enter a laser detection chamber for extremely early smoke detection. The VESDA system's highly sensitive receiver system produces a signal that is processed and presented via a bar graph display that is subsequently communicated to the buildings fire alarm control panel notifying the local Queensland Fire and Rescue Service instantly.
In typical Sanity Technology fashion, simply implementing a VESDA system was not the only measure taken. During the initial build process the facility was stripped back to the basics of a concrete floor and concrete ceiling with the removal of all pre-existing wiring, air-conditioning, ceiling tiles, lighting, etc. Subsequently fire-rated walls were erected to fully enclose the facility from external elements, with an exposed ceiling with suspended lighting and uni-strut supported electrical cabling.
Monitoring
Every measurable aspect of the facility is logged to a centrally managed environmental monitoring solution specifically designed to detect and alert to factors that require attention by Sanity Technology staff. The range of factors monitored includes the following metrics:
- Overall power usage, drilled down to each individual cabinet.
- Overall cooling demand, drilled down each individual InRow cooling unit.
- Temperature within the facility, including multiple temperature probes at various locations inside each HACS system.
- The functional status of each InRow cooling unit, with detailed temperature, gas pressure and efficiency metrics available.
- The availability and measure of each electricity feed via the electricity grid and the UPS power demand.
- Water leak detection surrounding InRow cooling units and throughout the facility floor space.
- Air quality via measurement of dust and particles in the air, including various gases and smoke.
- Continuous CCTV monitoring to a centralized off-site recording system.
- Swipe card access control, logging each entry and exit of staff and clients to the facility.
Security
Physical security to the facility is provided to clients and staff via proximity smart-cards, coupled with round the clock CCTV monitoring inside the facility and over the exit and entry areas. The provision of 24/7 un-escorted access to the facility is available to clients with individually lockable cabinets.