The sun is out at last and the new DC in Northampton is entering the final stages of the build. A lot of the work going on at the moment is cosmetic (most of the infrastructure work is complete), but it’s this that makes the biggest visual difference to how “finished” the building looks

This week the landscape people have flattened the area in front of the building and laid the paths, turf and are starting on the customer parking area. Inside, the office areas are being decorated and furniture is being installed (I wouldn’t fancy building dozens of flat pack desks for a living, I can tell you). We’ll be kitting out the NOC and other offices over the next couple of weeks.

On the DC side of things we’ve installed the Gas Suppression system now, along with a lot of the Aircon pipework and other bits of infrastructure.

Here’s some of the latest site pictures

Rik

Here’s a summary of the main developments:

The office space is nearly complete. We have a number of meeting rooms being built that can be used by customers, along with a breakout area and a large room upstairs for seminars and conferences

The site now has mains power (4MW). All the panel boards are installed and are in the process of being commissioned. 2 generators are now installed for phase 1.

Most of the work in the Data Hall is complete. The aircon units are installed and the gas fire suppression is nearly complete. Once this is done, we will give the whole room a deep clinical clean.

The exterior of the building is pretty much done. We have some landscaping works starting soon, and we will be installing 30 CCTV cameras inside and out, along with door access systems in the next couple of weeks.

The Aircon Chillers have also been delivered and work has started on the pipework between the chillers and the CRAC units.

I’ll post some more pics when we have cleared the site a bit over the next week or so. We are on the home straight. Thanks for your interest!

Rik

Well, it’s been a cold one in Northampton this winter, but we’re still making good progress on the new Data Centre DC4. It always amazes me how quickly these projects come together towards the end. January will be very very busy, with lots of kit arriving onsite and being installed. This month will see the Generators and Panel Boards onsite, along with the Chillers and CRAC units. We plan to get mains power (4MW) to the building at the start of February and commission the UPS system shortly afterwards.

The internal rooms have all been finished now, so the data hall itself is being kitted out with lights, power busbars, aircon units and, of course a raised access floor. The pic below shows the 1st data hall as it is today.

Also onsite this week are the first bits of our power distribution system, with our PDUs for the A and B feeds being installed. The main panel boards will arrive later in the month. The board below is the A feed for Room 1 and Room 2. An identical unit provides the B feed.

Away from the Data Centre, the office space is also taking shape, with our glass frontage  coming a long nicely and space upstairs for seminars and other events

I’ll post an update next week when we should have some nice big blue generators to look at!

Rik

It’s been a while since we gave you an update on the progress of the Northampton Data Centre (AKA DC4), so here’s a quick summary of the project so far

For those who don’t know, Northampton DC4 will be Node4′s largest and highest spec data centre. It will provide about 720 racks worth of Tier 3 colocation space with fully redundant power subsystems, cooling, network connections and a high level of physical security. There’s an overview of the site here

The site is approximately twice the size of our Leeds facility at over 40000 sq ft, but the build is on schedule and going well

So far we have:

• Installed all the external security fencing
• Completed about 60% of the external cladding
• Installed 3-4m high security concrete walls inside the facility
• Built the first data hall structure and 1 of the plant rooms from ISOclad
• Started work on the Office construction

Next week will see the installation of the Raised Access Floor and work will continue on the ISOClad walls and office areas

All the electrical fit out (generators, cabling, panelboards etc) will start shortly after Christmas along with the aircon installation

It’s a big project but we are starting to get some real momentum and you can see the building taking shape now. If you are a Node4 customer (or a potential customer) and would like to see the facility, please contact your account manager or the sales team on 08451232222.

Here are a few images of the build

Rik. Datacentre Ops Manager

We have been looking to expand the business by developing a fourth data centre in a new location; the fastest growing town in the UK, Northampton, seemed like a natural choice. The move to the heart of England will expand our customer reach even further and being just an hour from London make it particularly accessible to businesses in the southern region of the UK.

Plans for the new DC4 in Northampton are currently being finalised and it is planned that the facility will be ready for customers to move in by the end of 2010. The site will follow the same high standards set in our existing Wakefield and Derby data centres.  With space for up to 600 racks and features such as UPS, generators and climate control in most cases being N+N it will ensure that the facility offers Tier IV levels of resiliency.  The new site will be part of our highly resilient core MPLS network that also includes points of presence in Telehouse, Global Switch and TeleCity.

We have already established ourselves as a quality data centre provider with 2 locations and we want to continue to build on this reputation by increasing our capacity and geographic reach with the opening of a new facility in Northampton.  As with our other data centres, DC4 will carry a high specification but at sensible prices meaning that any organisation wanting colocation or managed hosting services can benefit from a quality facility without having to break the budget.

You will be able to keep up to date with the developments on this blog, although as it is still at design stage we don’t expect any update for a while.