4
FUTURESCOT
CYBERSECURITY
DataVita’s datacentre
employs multiple layers of
security and resilience
28 April 2016
SECURITY
l Automatic number plate recognition
l Vehicle ‘air lock’ and anti-ram barrier
l Twin anti-scale fences
l Motion sensing CCTV & RFID cards
l Three factor authentication and proximity alarms
l 24x7 on premise security personnel
QUALITY
l TUI certified design with construction and operations planned
l UK’s first life sciences and healthcare GxP compliant DC
l Indirect, adiabatic free air cooling system
l Energy efficient and carbon neutral
l Independent power and back up fuel stores
l Pioneering ‘cloud-enabled’ datacentre
Where maximum security
is taken to a whole new level
Scotland’s first purposebuilt data centre sets
new standards for
safety and efficiency
BY WILLIAM PEAKIN
Chapelhall, near Airdrie, is not the first
place you might think to retreat to in
the event of the zombie apocalypse.
But there is a building there, which,
if you happened to know the right
people, might just offer the chance of
survival.
It features motion-sensing CCTV,
automatic number plate recognition
(granted, your average zombie usually
turns up on foot), twin anti-scale fences
and a vehicle ‘airlock’ with anti-ram
barrier (in the event of said zombies
requisitioning an abandoned lorry).
Inside, there are many more layers
of security, overseen by police and
military trained personnel, robust links
with the outside world and enough
independent power to last until even
the most determined living dead lose
interest.
Back in the real world, the building is actually Fortis; Scotland’s first
purpose-built data centre and the
largest, energy efficient facility in the
country, offering high quality colocation hosting and innovative cloud
services. Public sector organisations,
financial services companies, the NHS
and life science firms will be able to
store data and run applications in
a secure, cost-efficient and carbonneutral environment. The facility has
been designed and will be operated by
DataVita, a Scottish company formed
for the purpose last year.
Particularly for local and central
government in Scotland, the centre
provides the first real opportunity to
bring efficiency into its data hosting
strategy, by offering a facility that is
big, efficient and secure enough to
allow consolidation of the myriad
public sector datacentres in use. But
DataVita has also designed the data
centre to meet the highest standards of
compliance in the financial and health
sectors, allowing it to win national and
international business for Scotland.
The centre will also boost Scotland’s
green energy credentials, running on
renewable power and using a cooling
system that is among the most energy
efficient in the world.
ONE MEASURE of a data centre is its
‘Power Usage Effectiveness’, or PUE.
It is the multiplier of energy used over
and above that to power the computer
equipment (mostly that is cooling, but
also lighting and any other power consumption). According to the Uptime
Institute, the independent IT infrastructure organisation, the average
data centre has a PUE of about 1.7.
“The PUE at Fortis is 1.18,” said
commercial director Gareth Lush,
“meaning that the average public
sector organisation could save around
£200,000 annually on energy costs
alone by moving away from trying
to run inefficient in-house computer
rooms to hosting their IT equipment
with DataVita – and that’s before you
look at other potential savings from
space and staff time being freed up.
“It is also unprecedented in terms
of quality and security – it will be the
first data centre in Scotland to achieve
Tier III certification from the Uptime
Institute for design, construction and
sustainable operations.”
DataVita goes live at the end of June
and will employ up to 50 people. It’s
a new business backed by a Scottish
investor that was anticipating the
future in diversifying its business, and
two data centre experts – Lush and his
business partner, operations director Danny Quinn; the brains behind
the centre’s advanced features. They
convinced the investor that it had
the opportunity to build one of the
most advanced, secure and efficient
data centres in Europe and “bring to
market a truly unqiue proposition,”
said Lush.
Currently, Scotland’s co-location
data centre space (that is, available to
other companies and organisations, as
opposed to a firm’s private dedicated
facility) is close to its limit; there are
only seven in Scotland (whereas there
are more than 50 just within the M25).
Existing data centres in Scotland
are also ‘retro-fitted’; adaptions of
buildings previously used for another
purpose. Fortis has been purpose built
from the ground up (in fact, below
ground also with secure, dedicated
internet connections and back-up gVV