WEB HOSTING: data centre

facilities

The data centre we use offers a secure, resilient environment for our web hosting platform. Based in a secure facility the data centre is built to an N+1 specification, so that if any particular service fails - e.g. electricity or air conditioning - another backup service automatically takes over the failed service's job.

power

Dual power feeds enter the building at different points and Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) ensure that all power to the server area is clean and spike free. In the event of a power outage the UPS can take the entire data centre load for up to five minutes. However within 20 seconds the redundant generators are able to indefinitely take on the entire data centre load.

Security

The data centre is manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that if anything goes wrong engineers can respond quickly and effectively to the problem.

Access to the data centre is via a master access list using Smart Card authentication. Access to the data centre is by authorisation only.

CCTV operates throughout the facility.

Cooling & Fire Suppression

The temperature of the data centre is kept at a steady 20oC to allow optimum equipment performance.

The fire detection system monitors the room for any sign of fire and allows operators to respond to such a situation using a variety of fire suppression techniques.

servers

Only Dell servers are used in the web hosting platform. Utilising state-of-the-art technology we have built a web hosting platform that is second to none

The platform is designed in such a way that if any server fails another server automatically and without delay takes over that server's workload. For example, if one of the mail servers breaks down another server automatically comes online, with all the correct configuration, and takes over the work of the failed server. During this period no email is lost.

As well as this, all data is stored in two large network disk arrays. Data is automatically synchronised between the arrays so that in the event of an array failing the remaining array continues to serve data to the servers with no downtime.

The current server specification is:

• Dual Quad Core Intel® Xeon® 3.16GHz with 2X6MB Cache
• 8 GB RAM
• Dual 136 GB SCSI Drive (for the operating system)
• RAID Mirroring (for the operating system)
• Dual Power Supplies
• Dual Gigabit Network Adapters

backups

Our network arrays operate RAID, a way of configuring a system so a disk can fail with no impact to data. As explained above we also operate the network arrays in mirrored pairs so a whole array can fail with no impact. Each array is also backed up each night to a separate backup cluster which is then written to tape and stored offsite.

Our backup procedure goes above and beyond the majority of web hosting companies.

network

The network we use operates on industry-leading network equipment from Cisco Systems. All the switches and routers are developed by Cisco. Our network is based on gigabit technology, which means that it runs at a speed of 1000 Mb per second.

Our network also utilises 100% CAT6 network cable, which contains four pairs of copper wire and, unlike CAT5, utilises all four pairs. CAT6 supports Gigabit (1000 Mbps) Ethernet and supports communications at more than twice the speed of CAT5e, which is the other popular standard for Gigabit Ethernet cabling.

The network utilises BGP4 technology. Simply put, there are multiple connections to the Internet with different backbone providers, should any connection fail the other connections automatically take all the traffic. Not only does this mean that connectivity lose is unlikey, but it also means that traffic moving to and from the network can choose from a range of paths to get to its final destination. The network is configured to always take the fastest paths.

unix

We run Redhat Enterprise Linux, the most stable release of Redhat Linux available. Redhat is the leading provider of Linux open source software. For many years now Redhat Linux has been the number one choice for web hosting companies, not just because of Redhat's amazing scalability but also because of its track record as the most stable operating system available in the market today.

Our systems utilise the latest Redhat server technology to allow the servers to be continually up to date with Redhat system & security patches.