Take a peek inside 'Europe's most advanced datacenter'

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  • Telehouse North 2

    Telehouse North 2

    This is North Two, a newly-built £135m ($172m) datacenter that will add another 260,000 square feet (24,000 square meters) of space across 11-storeys to Telehouse's existing Docklands campus in London.

    Telehouse said the popularity of mobile video services, new business models based on the Internet of Things (IoT), and the widespread use of cloud services are all placing huge pressure on datacenter infrastructure.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Datacenter floor

    Datacenter floor

    North Two, which Telehouse describes as Europe's most advanced datacenter, features the first multi-storey adiabatic cooling system, which uses water evaporation to reduce the temperature of the air.

    Datacenters account for somewhere between two and 2.5 percent of total electricity consumption in Europe. North 2 will have a PUE energy rating of around 1.16, partly thanks to its cooling system.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • On-campus grid substation

    On-campus grid substation

    Telehouse has been in Docklands since 1990. With North 2, it now has a total of 790,000 square feet (73,400 square meters) of datacenter space, with over 530 carriers, ISPs, and ASPs as customers.

    The datacenter has its own on-campus 132kV grid substation, plus eight generators with a total capacity of 18.5MW.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Early smoke detection

    Early smoke detection

    Here's another view of the datacenter floor.

    The site's security features include very early smoke detection alarms installed throughout the facility and over 400 movement-activated CCTV cameras cover the site's perimeter, entrances, loading docks, reception, and corridors. There is a single point of entry to the main facility controlled by time-limited access cards

    Doors are fitted with alarms that immediately report back to the security suite when unauthorised access is attempted or doors are forced or held open.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Datacenter generator room

    Datacenter generator room

    This is one of the diesel generators that will keep the datacenter operational in case of a major power outage. They can fire up in 10 to 30 seconds if needed.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Water-mist system

    Water-mist system

    Shown here are the pipework for the pre-action water mist sprinkler system and dual redundant electrical supplies to the sprinkler pumps.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Sprinklers

    Sprinklers

    This box contains sprinkler-head replacements. If any head is found to be faulty or damaged during maintenance inspections, they can be replaced immediately.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Fire suppression

    Fire suppression

    Here is the centralized gas fire suppression system that protects the electrical switch rooms where water-mist suppression is not suitable. The system uses a nitrogen-based gas to put out fires.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Datacenter power

    Datacenter power

    The uninterruptable power supply, or UPS, room feeds power to the datacenter halls.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Cooling system

    Cooling system

    This is a view of part of North 2's air-conditioning and cooling system.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Datacenter air conditioning

    Datacenter air conditioning

    This shows the indirect-air cooling units. On higher temperature days, a built-in adiabatic cooling water-misting system is used to cool the ambient air before it reaches the heat exchanger, ensuring the air temperature delivered to the data hall remains within a specified range.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Air intakes

    Air intakes

    This is the air intake for the four generators seen earlier in the operational generator hall. Between the generators and the exterior walls are 23 feet (seven meters) of sound-proofing to keep any outside noise to a minimum.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • Datacenter ducts

    Datacenter ducts

    Some of the miles of ducts and cabling in North 2.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

  • View from the top

    View from the top

    The choice of connectivity that a location like Docklands in East London offers means that putting datacenters relatively close to the city is still key, according to Telehouse board director Michelle Reid.

    "Latency is very important, so distance is key," she said.

    Here's a view from the top of the building over London. The roof offers space to site satellite and telephone masts.

    Photo by: Image: Telehouse

    Caption by: Steve Ranger

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Early smoke detection

Here's another view of the datacenter floor.

The site's security features include very early smoke detection alarms installed throughout the facility and over 400 movement-activated CCTV cameras cover the site's perimeter, entrances, loading docks, reception, and corridors. There is a single point of entry to the main facility controlled by time-limited access cards

Doors are fitted with alarms that immediately report back to the security suite when unauthorised access is attempted or doors are forced or held open.

Caption by: Steve Ranger

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