Established in 1993, Options Technology Ltd is a London-based business which offers a turnkey technology solution for the investment banking sector. Around £50 million in assets is currently managed by over 75 customers utilising the company’s services and infrastructure and therefore issues such as uptime and availability are vital to successful operations.

Options is  collocated in multiple data centres around the globe, however as the company moved to capitalise on advances in computing technology it recognised that while existing facilities were meeting current needs,  greater efficiencies could be achieved in managing and hosting a high density environment. Max Brown, CIO, Options Technology Limited says, “from its inception, Options Technology has worked with a variety of service providers and therefore we have a good idea of customer needs and wants. This knowledge combined with the lack of availability of the power density to deliver the requirements of our innovative business drove Options to build a state of the art data centre.”

The new data centre has been designed specifically to accommodate high density IT equipment, with power and cooling scalable from 2kW to 30kW per cabinet. The data centre therefore incorporates an 800mm raised floor for room-based computer room air conditioning (CRAC), coupled with APC  InfraStruXure^® Hot Aisle Containment System (HACS) for close coupled cooling of high density loads. Options is also using the free cooling chillers of APC partner Stulz  to enhance further the efficiency of the air conditioning system.

Max Brown continues “our aim was to make our own data centre as reliable and future-proof as possible. We therefore adopted Best Practice in order to achieve the mix of power density combined with the high level of power and cooling redundancy and resilience that our business requires.” Max Brown’s credentials to design and project manage the construction of Options’ Park Royal Data Centre are peerless; as CIO he has worked in IT for various organisations designing global infrastructure networks, but he is also a trained electrical engineer and therefore has good insight into the power and cooling challenges which beset today’s facilities.

Having identified a suitable site, the facility took just one year to build out and commission. The new 10,000 square foot facility has up to 1.5MW, 2N utility power from separate sub-stations. The mains supply is not fully utilised to allow for expansion, and is protected by a diesel power generator with on-site fuel supplies for multi-day autonomy. The facility is fully redundant on switchgear and the cooling is N+1, including N+1 on the chillers and down-flow units and 2N on the pump. “To extend the lifecycle of the data centre, we have used the most up to date equipment wherever possible so long as it brings some additional benefit in terms of resilience, efficiency or scalability,” explains Max Brown.

The company has installed its own IT system within an APC InfraStruXure^® Hot Aisle Containment System (HACS), says Max Brown: “Our customers expect the system to be available – if it isn’t the consequences are extreme as they are simply unable to do business. The containment of hot air ensures that high density equipment can be deployed with higher levels of predictability and lower levels of risk. In addition the separation of hot and cool air streams enables higher efficiency infrastructure.”

As far as power resilience is concerned, the facility provides totally independent 2N power to every cabinet, with power feeds from separate PDUs, separate UPS and separate LV switchgear to ensure maximum availability and uptime.  Max Brown comments “Traditionally, data centres have offered N+1 power redundancy at cabinet level. While this may be sufficient for legacy installations, today’s business critical enterprise technologies require greater levels of power diversity and redundancy.”

Options use APC Symmetra^® PX UPS for power protection; “It’s simply the most reliable UPS unit on the market,” Max Brown says. “We have used Symmetra^® UPS for a number of years without problem, so we’re very familiar with the technology. We’re also using APC NetShelter^® racks because they are well made, have no sharp edges and will accommodate almost any IT equipment. In fact, you could say that Options’ use of APC InfraStruXure^® was a logical step for the company to take as we set about designing our own data centre.”

In situ, Options place Symmetra^® PX UPS at the end of each aisle. The Symmetra^® PX is a world class, redundant, scalable, power protection system designed to provide high levels of availability cost-effectively. It seamlessly integrates into Options’ state-of-the-art data centre concept with dedicated and redundant power, intelligence, battery and bypass modules. The UPS is engineered to be easily and efficiently serviceable, and can scale power and runtime as demand within the data centre grows or as higher levels of availability are required.

All areas of the new facility are protected with fire detection and FM200 fire suppression in conjunction with gas and smoke extraction and pressure relief systems. From a connectivity point of view, the Options data centre is on-net with all significant circuit carriers as well as major managed network providers. Security is paramount and the entire facility is located in an unbranded, anonymous building surrounded by significant physical barriers to entry. Internally, suites, cages and cabinet access are protected by both proximity and biometric controls. Internal and external areas are monitored by motion sensing, high definition CCTV.

Max Brown concludes “the Options Park Royal Data Centre meets the urgent need for highly specified and future proof data centre space in London. Our use of APC InfraStruXure^® for on-demand data centres, as well as its Hot Aisle Containment Systems has eliminated the power and cooling constraints of many legacy facilities, enabling our customers to leverage the price and performance advantages of modern high density data processing and storage equipment.”