Berkshire Fortress: Royale installs cooling systems into bomb-proof data centre
Businesses of all kinds require heating and cooling, and sometimes we’re privileged to provide solutions for some truly unique companies and places.
Recently, Royale was brought on board to provide its expertise to quite a special company. The Bunker, part of Cyberfort Group, provides corporate data storage from its military-grade secure data centres in Berkshire and Kent. But what does ultra-secure data storage have to do with cooling solutions, you say?
That’s where we come in.
Cyberfort Group: Solving a modern data challenge
It’s no secret we’re in a digital age now. Modern businesses are all online, all the time – a fact that brings significant vulnerability and risk. How much risk, you say? According to one study, cybercrime generated approximately 1.5 trillion Dollars for criminals in 2018. It’s big business that damages legitimate enterprises every day.
Companies like Cyberfort – and The Bunker data centre in Berkshire – provide end-to-end data security in this challenging environment. While we can’t quite name too many names, it’s safe to say they count several global business titans as their customers.
Why was Royale needed?
Simon, our Managing Director, managed this project personally. What many don’t realise is that data isn’t simple to store; besides rigorous cybersecurity protections, large data centres generate tremendous amounts of heat that needs to be controlled with absolute precision.
The value of a data and cloud storage centre like The Bunker is in its reliability. Physical security is impressive, to say the least; Royale’s engineers all needed to be vetted before entering the area to work, and any new engineers or participants in the Royale project were personally escorted in and out of the premise.
The rows of servers and hardware provide a similar digital promise. Simply put, companies pay Cyberfort to guarantee that their business-critical data is available and secure twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. That means redundant systems, exceptional monitoring and management and rock-solid cybersecurity that never sleeps.
Cooling The Bunker
Picture the scene: A large room filled with rack after rack of contemporary storage. Room 121, the key area of Royale’s work, is a high-revenue room for the business – and it needed an upgrade.
Five cooling systems were in place; all were removed. Replacing these with eight modern units, all managed by a Daikin RTD-10 control strategy, was more than a little challenging for one key reason: it had to be done without shutting Room 121 down for a single second.
The RTD-10 solution
Daikin’s RTD-10 is a real piece of kit; specifically designed for IT server rooms, it enables Cyberfort to manage each cooling unit individually inside The Bunker.
Depending on load and active use of the server equipment, fan coils inside the server room can operate on rotation. Not only is this more energy efficient, but it helps to maintain precise temperatures in a room with constantly changing climatic conditions. This approach to temperature control also helps to maximise the lifetime of the system.
The RTD-10 control solution provides advanced fault monitoring when integrated with The Bunker’s building management system. The value of this type of monitoring and control is immeasurable for Cyberfort.
Challenge accepted
This was a delicate task, as you can imagine. By installing eight replacement systems alongside the five existing units, our team carefully switched each older system over to control by our newer, more effective units – one by one, and while maintaining an exact air temperature of 21 degrees.
The project took four weeks to complete. Four weeks of constant diligence, careful work and the slow but steady transfer of old systems to new, all the while maintaining that specific temperature. Stakes were high; simply put, data centres that aren’t cooled will spike in temperature shockingly fast. Servers may literally melt in their racks, destroying hardware and the data within.
Job done
We’re proud to say it went without a hitch – at the cost of more than a few sleepless nights across the Royale team! Our result was the installation of the desired cooling solution with no dip in performance throughout the period of our work.
Going forward, Cyberfort has an enhanced cooling system that is more efficient and boasts more sophisticated security and alarm control. That capability adds value to their offering, helping to guarantee to their clients the kind of constant security and access that matters so much in a business world rife with cybercrime.
Thanks for reading!
The Bunker was one of our more unique bespoke projects, there’s no doubt about that.
If you’d like to chat with us about your own heating and cooling requirements, and whether we might be able to support you with a solution to them, we’re right here and happy to talk. Call us on 01635 551446 or email on [email protected] today.
