NTT Ltd. is one of the largest IT providers in the world. The first phase of the company’s London 1 (LON1) Data Centre in Dagenham, East London, offers a colocation area of 12,800 square meters with a capacitance of 32 MW IT load. Once completed, the facility will provide 25,600 square meters of IT space and 64 MW IT load. London 1 joins five existing data centres NTT currently operates in Hemel Hempstead and Slough.
London is Europe’s largest data centre market and the heart of the finance industry. London1 offers short transmission paths to the London Internet Exchange (LINX) in the Docklands - the peering point is just 15 km away. “Our British data centres are of crucial importance for the global economy and guarantee interruption-free service 365 days a year,” says Florian Winkler, CEO of the Global Data Centres EMEA Division at NTT. “NTT guarantees multiple redundancy and an availability of 99,999 % in compliance with Tier III classification.”
The London 1 Data Centre uses 100% renewable energy. The facility is one of the first data centres in the world that doesn’t rely on a traditional chiller plant with compressors. Significant energy savings have been realized through a new cooling design. Thanks to effective design, a rack temperature range of between 25 to 32°C is achieved by just using cooling towers. The site has no air conditioning, relying instead on evaporative cooling all year round.
R&M’s bespoke cabling solution plays a major part in the realization of the building. Having delivered ODF solutions to NTT on several sites over many years, R&M fully understood NTT’s requirements. For LON1, R&M was asked to provide an ODF solution that would allow LC to MPO connectivity between MMR and the client. To adhere to NTT’s design concept in terms of technology, solution, usability and general product aesthetics, the engineering team in the UK, with support from the Swiss design team at headquarters, re-engineered the HD Combi ODF for an LC/MPO solution and took it from concept to delivery to site within six weeks.
The company utilizes an ODF LC/MPO product range that offers high performance, high-density OS2/MM fibre connectivity on a small footprint, excellent patch cord management to facilitate efficient administration and avoid downtime and fast and efficient deployment to NTT customers. Furthermore, R&M provided support and logistics management from the beginning. Despite pandemic-related challenges, it was possible to get the first phase of London1 up and running in 2020 following initial announcement the previous year.
Fibre optic lines, multi-service interconnection platforms and cross-connect cabling are available for millisecond-fast connections into the global network. Expert NTT personnel can also be consulted, providing remote-hands services. Options for colocation customers start with an individual rack – which they install themselves or use as part of the NTT full-stack service. They are given space for fail-safe cloud and SaaS applications or workload distribution. The data centre also contains a Technology Experience Lab in which customers and developers can try out innovative hardware, software and cloud services under live conditions. This saves them having to make their own infrastructure investments. Topics include cyber security, artificial intelligence and block chain technology.