Company

The client is a global financial institution with headquarters in London.

Problem

The client approached us as they needed to expand capacity in two of their British data centres in a very short timeframe. More employees were working from home during the Covid pandemic and this had increased demand on their network. 

Working in financial services meant they were also facing regulatory challenges when it came to compliance, call recording services, and so on. This would usually be handled by the compliance facility in their office environment, but this was not possible when employees were working from home during the pandemic. 

Transporting support infrastructure to employees’ homes was not viable, so it had to be done remotely. Employees were struggling to work from home without the infrastructure in place, and the company’s data centres required rapid expansion to support remote workers and provide them with the resources they needed to keep the business on track and maintain control of the situation we were all facing.

The client had specific requirements and needed to install 100 additional server cabinets on each site - and the data centres needed to be fitted with additional cooling systems, ventilation, power distribution and network cabling to accommodate the new cabinets. 

Solution

The typical process for data centre solutions refers to being in contact with a building services contractor who would then engage with various subcontractors, who would then place an order with a manufacturer.

It can then take between three and four months for the materials to arrive. Our customer was working with a tight deadline, so we needed a solution to speed up this process. 

We ordered the materials that they needed for the project in advance and had them delivered to our head office. This meant we could pre-stage the cabinets before delivering them to our customer’s sites.

We added specific components such as Legrand Raritan intelligent PDUs and sensors to each Legrand Minkels 52U (2.3m) high cabinet to customise them to their unique requirements prior to delivery. 

This significantly reduced the lead time to completion, reduced the amount of engineering time spent working on the cabinets on-site, and ensured complete aesthetic uniformity across every single cabinet, with the work being performed in a clean pre-stage environment.

200 identical cabinets were then delivered across two sites ready to be installed.

Outcome

We were able to deliver the cabinets to the client’s sites within the timeframe they needed them. The cabinets were fully built to their specifications and no additional work needed to be carried out once they arrived. 

This approach to our data centre services was both efficient and cost-effective. It also reduced the number of people working in the data centre which not only improved data security, something that was extremely important to the customer, but also drastically reduced the risk of COVID transmission on site, potentially saving lives. 

Data Centre Solutions FAQ

What part does the design play in all of this? Do you design data centre solutions?

Networks Centre takes a collaborative approach to these solutions; we ordered sample cabinets from various vendors and had them delivered to our warehouse.

We invited the client to view them and offer comments on how they would like the finished cabinet to look. The cabinet design was then tailored to their exact specifications and signed off by the client before being delivered to their sites. 

The client’s engineers are going to be using the cabinets on a daily basis, so we understand it’s important that they meet the requirements of all stakeholders.

How long did the installation process take? 

We delivered 100 cabinets to the South London site and these were installed in just four days. A traditional installation would take between two and three weeks as you’d need time to unbox the materials and then install all the components in the cabinet. We reduced the installation window significantly by completing the majority of this work off-site before delivery. 

This approach is more efficient and cost-effective as the customer did not have to outsource any engineering work to third parties.

Are there any other benefits to this data centre solutions approach? 

An added benefit of this approach is that it helped the company reduce their CO2 emissions. Having all of the materials (cabinets, power strips, cabling, etc) delivered in one shipment is much more sustainable than arranging multiple smaller deliveries. 

We were also able to recycle the packaging from the materials at our on-site recycling facility when we were unboxing and modifying the cabinets. Data centres don’t have recycling facilities on-site, so most of this waste would have ended up in general waste bins and gone to landfills. 

There are roughly 15 to 20 kilos of packaging per cabinet which adds up to a lot of waste! We were able to reduce the emissions associated with the delivery process and save the customer money with our pre-staging services.