M247 Ltd Manchester Datacentre Build Blog

With the ‘move’ from London now finished everything is up and running. The datacentre is in the finishing stages with jobs such sorting and furnishing taking place. With the racks flat packed and brought from London we can also begin the process of building our 2nd pod which should be under demand shortly.

Apart from a final ’snag list’ of cosmetic touch-ups, the datacentre is now complete

• The fully resilient network is now operational
• The N+1 close-control cooling is up and running
• Local Authority Building Control have signed off all the works
• Electrical infrastructure is fully complete, certified and online, including generator and N+1 UPS protection and power conditioning
• The numerous fire detection and suppression systems are now active
• Security systems are online, including detailed internal & external IP CCTV, proximity door access and priority-response RedCare alarm system

There are now more than 200 live operational servers online at the facility, with another 300 due to be moved over the coming weeks.

The finishing touches are being completed to the office areas, with a view to our permanent sales, technical support and NOC operations moving here within the next couple of weeks.

See below for some photographs of progress over the past week or so…

The final leg of our fibre network was completed yesterday evening. The 20Gbps network is now live and running with full diversity and protection all the way back to London and out to the Internet.

The air-conditioning install is continuing, but was pushed a day or so behind schedule

No photos today unfortunately – expect more shortly…

Everything is progressing very well. The fist of our office furniture has arrived, including a rather large solid oak reception desk. Installation of the Paxton proximity door security system is nearly complete and the two main fire suppression and detection systems are now up and running.

Installation of the air-conditioning systems has been progressing well this week, and is scheduled to be finished by Wednesday next week. Final fibre pulling and splicing was completed at 5am this morning (due to traffic control restrictions) and we’re hoping to bring this 10G link into live service on Monday

See below for photos of this week’s progress

Friday was a very successful day. The UPS cluster and first generator have been commissioned, fully tested and also undergone several hours of load-bank testing. A number of different ‘real’ mains-failure scenarios were tested and the power backup systems performed flawlessly (without a single ‘tweak’ required!). The entire electrical infrastructure is now fully operational.

The cold-aisle containment is also now complete on the first pod (ie two contained rows) of racks.

There is more fibre pulling scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, with final splicing & testing on Wednesday. The final 10G network link will then be operational towards the end of the week. Thursday will see the main downflow air conditioning equipment installed and commissioned.

We’re very much on target for full completion by the end of the week

Photos from Friday below…

The main board is up and running, the generator is cabled and due to be commisioned tomorrow.

The plaster upstairs is drying nicely and should be painted early next next week.

The DC build is progressing well with the main panel now 90% installed (to be completed tomorrow), UPS cabling done, the first pod of racks has been installed and work has started on the containment for the cables to the generator (to be completed tomorrow).

Tomorrow United Utilities will arrive to upgrade part of our power supply, the UPS battery build starts and the generator cabling starts!

We hope to have initial power to the rack by Monday and Air conditioning around 1 week later.

The office has started to be plastered!

We will start the job of installing around 200 cables into patch panels late Friday/Monday.

More progress has been made on the little details, including the lines of racks shaping up nicely and last of the plaster boarding is going up upstairs.

The most important change today is this one though.  The main board is in place!

Not much chatter tonight, just some pictures

The first dark-fibre network link is now operational. This link is actually the 27km 10Gig backup route, linking the datacentre to one of our two  main Manchester Points-of-Precense (POPs) located at one of the Telecity facilities on the Science Park. The primary network link will be a shorter 9km dark-fibre route and is anticipated to be online within the next week or so (weather permitting!).

We had hoped to also bring this second network route online this weekend, but the final duct construction ‘en route’ had been delayed due to the recent adverse weather conditions. These duct and box builds are are now progressing well (see photos below) and are due to be completed within the next 48 hours. The final 2km of fibre pulling is scheduled for later this week – again, weather permitting!

A short update and some pictures…

Progress is continuing with wiring the power system.
The fire suppression system is progressing nicely.
The first of our external cameras is up and running.

Today we have had some very significant deliveries to the datacentre. We have had the generator delivered at the exact same time we had gas cylinders delivered and a bit later on, half of our racks were delivered. We have had a lot of progess with our fibre connectivity, we should have that live very shortly. We have had people splicing today with the fibre. We also had the office people in today who continued their work on the development of the office partitions upstairs, they haven’t been able to access the site recently due to weather restrictions. Today, we had one of our newly delivered network cameras configured which you can see below along with plenty of other pictures from todays events.

Today we had one of the major step forwards in intruder protection with the start of the installation of the windows bars. As you can see they are pretty well re-inforced. We have had a lot of electricians in working with the switch board and the power distribution unit. They’re currently glanding from the main board around the datacenter. We had an arrival of our wireless access points, we were the last delivery of the day! More deliverys today, quite importantly the generator will be arriving, the picture below shows the spot waiting for it.

Cable testing is continuing. The cables between the power distro boxes and main panel have been installed and the cabling between the main panel and UPSs has also been installed. Fire suppression install is going well.

UPS’s are now being cabled up

Partitioining is progressing well with the passage taking shape

Box build for South-bound route has started.

More testing for the power distribution.

The contrete has arrived for the Gen set pad and is being layed now.

Cable tray Version 3 is now being installed

The partitions upstair’s are going up fast.

Fire supression install has started.

Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. We were not meant to be at the DC today but through circumstances ended up there any way and had the opportunity to take pics. Because of this they are taken with the phone cam and therefore not good quality.

The Window film decision was made for blackout vinyl and opaque white on upper rear of the building. This allows us to get a good combination of security, sun light and good looks. We also had the delivery of the 4.5 km Optic Fibre which will be pulled through over the next few days. The Paxman final decision was also reached so that our key areas are controlled electronically by card. The UPS system and batteries arrived also whilst we were there.

At the bottom of this page is a link to a webcam which has a live feed of the happenings in the Sever room at the DC.

The watchful eye