Macquarie Telecom - Data Centre and Hosting

Data Centre and Hosting

Macquarie Telecom runs a data centre as part of its business selling managed services and managed hosting. The data centre is located in Sydney and is branded by Macquarie Telecom as "Intellicentre".

Any modern data centre is expected to provide redundancy of utilities and physical plant, as well as some level of physical security. Macquarie Telecom's data centre is fairly typical of this and provides:

• Telecommunications connectivity - The data centre uses the Macquarie Telecom network, AAPT, Telstra and PowerTel for Internet routing, and has multiple telecommunications providers providing connectivity to the data centre.

• Air conditioning - the data centre has 25 cooling units, each with 75 kW heat rejection. There is N + 1 redundancy, with units able to handle 100% of capacity with one or more spare in case of failure. The facility also has dual redundant cooling pumps, cooling towers and heat exchangers.

• Fire protection - the data centre has multi-point aspirated Cerebrus smoke detection with VESDA. In the event of fire, there is a FM 200 (main fire suppression), portable fire extinguishers and dry pipe pre-action sprinklers (as last resort).

• Physical Security - the data centre entry contains mantraps with hand-scanners. Code and proximity cards to restrict access to entry doors, and video monitoring of all doors, riser cupboards and plant rooms. The CCTV is equipped with motion detection and there are fixed cameras with digital recording capability and HDD archive.

• Electricity supply - the data centre is served by 3 separate power grid transformers, with only one connected permanently.

• Uninterruptible power supply - The data centre has 3 x 500 kva UPSs that have the capability of 15 minutes of full usage on batteries. As with any other data centre, both primary UPSs are continuously online and all power to the data facility is fed through them. Expectation is that within three minutes of the mains power supply outage backup generators will be able to supply power.

• Diesel generators - the data centre has 2 x 1675 kva diesel generators for backup power.

• Test Procedures - the data centre is tested on a monthly basis.

• Certifications - The data centre holds security related certifications including ISO 27001, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) T4 and the Defense Signals Directorate Gateway.

• Redundancy - the hosting service also sells a virtualised redundant site in Melbourne.