Security - keeping the Power Flowing
We admit that power supply isn't an exciting subject, but recent high-profile power failures in well-respected datacentres has made many
people realize that power-reliability is something that needs to be carefully considered.
Datacentre Power Supply
The datacentre we use (Scolocate in Edinburgh) takes power reliability as seriously as us by providing N+N Power Protection.
Standard power is supplied from 2 independent 22kV power feeds. These feeds originate from different substations to help guarantee continuity of
power and each power feed is backed up by a triple modular parallel 90-NET UPS System (Battery Backup). This UPS system is capable of powering
to whole datacentre for up to 30 minutes.
While 30 minutes of UPS battery power backup may not sound much, they also have 3 massive generators on-site comprising of Cummins 1.6 Megawatt,
1.4 Megawatt and 08.Megawatt generators. Each of the two large generators are capable of providing power to all servers for unlimited
amounts of time. In the case of Scolocate, the 30 minutes of battery backup they have available is around 25 minutes more than they need.
The power circuits are tested every 6 months to make sure that that transition of power from external feeds to the generators happens smoothly
and as expected. With all the tests they've done so far we know their power supply systems work.
Internally, Scolocate provide 2 completely independent power circuits (circuit A and circuit B) that deliver power to the datafloors. Each circuit is
backed up by a separate UPS system and generator.
Server Power Supply
Every one of our racks has a minimum of 4No. 16Amp power feeds. Since there are 2 independent power circuits, our minimum requirement for
each rack is 2 power feeds from circuit A and 2 power feeds from circuit B.
APC Transfer switches consolidate power from each circuit and make it available to our servers and other hardware.
This means that every single piece of hardware is supplied with power from two power circuits at the same time, and if one circuit
fails the other circuit will continue to provide power and our hardware will keep working.
Finally, APC Power Distribution switches deliver power directly to each piece of hardware, and since these are "switched" power distribution
switches, we can provide APC Remote Reboot facilities for all our servers and hardware.
Since every piece of hardware is provided with power from 2 independent power circuits, and the power circuits and fail-over performance are
tested regularly, we can confidently give you a 100% power supply guarantee.