Data Center "Switch AMS1" - we did what our clients lacked so much!
By providing premium quality services to thousands of subscribers, it is usually impossible to achieve customization to the full. Someone wants a permanent IP-KVM, someone has a higher bandwidth channel, but with limited traffic, someone to connect servers to each other in a local network, or just be able to expand the channel at the right time. It happens that a person does not even understand what he wants, and already during the discussion of the order he comes to the understanding that nothing from the standard iron is suitable in principle. And it often happens because of poor planning or excessive budget saving that a server is needed “for yesterday”, and not just a server, but a custom built solution.
It is extremely difficult to ensure all this if the goal is to provide premium quality services for the majority of subscribers for sane money. After all, the basic principle that is used to reduce the cost of high quality services is standardization (the channel has the same bandwidth for servers in the same cabinet, the same configurations, etc.), which facilitates planning and reduces the total running costs, as a large degree of automation is provided.
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For a long time, we wanted to make inexpensive and high-quality custom built at our main site, EvoSwitch, but we encountered some management problems that did not allow us to fully realize what was intended. We even started to think seriously about building our own data center. But in the spring of this year, I was approached by my good friend, who had been closely involved in the organization of his own platform for a long time and offered to cooperate. The site was practically commissioned, and most importantly, the right business model was conceived, close to us in spirit.
The data center “Switch” was not chosen by chance, it’s a new data center that practices innovation and has good energy efficiency, I spotted them a long time ago. Already, it has several server cabinets with ultra-efficient cooling in liquid, which I previously wrote about in my article “Dedicated servers under water, literally !?”? Prospects for breeding fish in the servers? ” What can I say, the guys keep up with the times. It's nice when the financial side goes into the background, and innovations are primary.
A little about the data center. The “Switch AMS1” data center is part of the Switch Datacenter Group. The mission of the group is to create and manage an ultra-energy-efficient network of data centers located in strategic locations. Switch AMS1 is not an exception, because it is located in the business district of southeastern Amsterdam, where one of the largest densities of international backbone networks in Europe is observed, which allows you to connect to the highest-level backbone operators at the most favorable conditions. The data center has a total area of ​​8.320 m2 / 89,555 ft2 and is equipped with the latest technology, adheres to the policy of "Carrier Neutral", when the subscriber can choose which "Internet providers" to use. And the choice is really huge!
Switch AMS1 has more than 460 fibers from 40 different trunk transport providers, such as Level3, Verizon, Zayo, BT, Colt, KPN, Atrato, Cogent, euNetworks, Relined, and several Internet exchanges.
Customers are also offered the opportunity to have network connections with two separate “Meet-Me-Room” to connect their infrastructure. This means that customers are able to get a network of double redundancy, thanks to physically separated routes.
Ecology. What do you think, what percentage of all global carbon emissions is accounted for by all existing data centers? More than 2%! This is a huge number, just think that only data centers cause such a huge load on the environment! Of course, it is not as high as from enterprises or from automobiles, but relatively large. This problem is well understood in the Switch Datacenter Group, because their data centers comply with the latest international standards and in environmental terms, in terms of energy efficiency (PUE). While the Amsterdam authorities require the city’s data centers to adhere to the PUE energy efficiency indicator of no more than 1.3 (with an average of 1.9 for the global market), Switch Datacenter Group achieved the value of 1.27 in 2012 when Switch AMS1 opened, by the end of 2013, this figure was reduced to 1.08, thanks to the use of suppliers of green energy and the use of unique technologies in the field of cooling and energy consumption. Which is certainly expensive, but in addition to reducing the burden on the environment, this also creates economic benefits in the long term, and Switch Datacenter Group understands this.
Already, in some data center segments, the above-mentioned cooling in liquid is used, which will make it possible in the future to achieve PUE 0.9 and below, if we transfer the entire data center to this ultra-efficient revolutionary technology.
"Data Center for the order." I have always been of the opinion that it only makes sense to build very large data centers if the task is to reduce operating costs and PUE to a minimum. This is obvious, because by default the larger data center receives more favorable conditions, both from the electricity supplier and from the backbone providers, and of course, there is more room for innovation. But what if you definitely need your own playground? It will be much more profitable to build a data center in the data center, and this solution will be no worse in terms of reliability, but even more reliable (more choice of backbone providers, a more extensive and well-coordinated team of specialists who will be engaged in supporting the data center infrastructure). Switch AMS1 offers this service and is ready to organize mini data centers ranging from 500 m2 / 5381 ft2.
This solution was chosen, the initial infrastructure - 40 server cabinets and 100 Gbit / s to the network with the possibility of a gradual increase in both the number of cabinets and the capacity of the network channels. And the most important result of this is complete freedom for our clients, which we wrote about above, with minimal operating costs for customers in the first place! It is time to reveal the details.
1. We understand that not everyone knows how to plan and take everything into consideration and are ready to deliver / assemble a custom built solution for you during the working day, sometimes within an hour, and if it is VERY urgent - even on weekends and holidays at 99.9 % of cases! However, we still ask you not to hope for a case, it may happen that you are not lucky, we will sort out the servers of some configuration, or 10-gigabit inclusions will run out (a large client will come and buy the entire reserve). Try to plan everything in time. For our part, we can only guarantee that we will make every effort to help you and provide the equipment in the shortest possible time, if you did not manage to plan something.
2. All servers are connected with dedicated guaranteed communication channels bandwidth in gigabits at least how much traffic you need you determine! You can add traffic at any time, either make it non-tariffable or increase the channel to the required bandwidth. At the moment, we provide servers with 5, 10, 25 and 100TB of total traffic per month on a dedicated 1 Gbps channel, as well as 1, 2 and 10 Gigabit connections without traffic. Please note that due to the high cost of 10-gigabit connections, we do not always have the opportunity to keep them in a “hot standby”. Also note that when switching from 2-gigabit inclusion to 10-gigabit, the ip-address is likely to change due to a significant difference in the inclusion technology.
3. Now when you request “I want to connect all my servers to a local network and rent a switch” you do not need to rent a private closet, it will be enough to order all the servers you need in ONE order and a switch to them, as well as pay for interconnect (fee depends on network topology , the number of servers connected to the local network).
4. We are also ready to provide the ability to use hardware firewall and traffic balancers, as well as individual configurations and solutions. However, such orders will require the conclusion of a long-term contract for a period of at least 1 year, or payment for this period, of course, with a good discount.
5. In all servers we provide IPMI for free.
And the best part - the lowest possible prices for services in this data center have been established, we have ensured that the cost of custom-built services is close to the cost of standard services, and in some cases even lower due to the traffic limit.
You can order servers on this site through our website http://ua-hosting.com.ua/nl-servers.html , choosing in the configurator "Netherlands, DC Switch (Amsterdam), complete freedom, delivery within 1 business day + free IPMI with all servers! ”
In conclusion, I want to show a few photos from the part of the data center where your servers are located, let's start with the kernel:
The room where custom built solutions are built for you:
Well, an isolated module that hosts some of the subscribers:
It is extremely difficult to ensure all this if the goal is to provide premium quality services for the majority of subscribers for sane money. After all, the basic principle that is used to reduce the cost of high quality services is standardization (the channel has the same bandwidth for servers in the same cabinet, the same configurations, etc.), which facilitates planning and reduces the total running costs, as a large degree of automation is provided.
')
For a long time, we wanted to make inexpensive and high-quality custom built at our main site, EvoSwitch, but we encountered some management problems that did not allow us to fully realize what was intended. We even started to think seriously about building our own data center. But in the spring of this year, I was approached by my good friend, who had been closely involved in the organization of his own platform for a long time and offered to cooperate. The site was practically commissioned, and most importantly, the right business model was conceived, close to us in spirit.
The data center “Switch” was not chosen by chance, it’s a new data center that practices innovation and has good energy efficiency, I spotted them a long time ago. Already, it has several server cabinets with ultra-efficient cooling in liquid, which I previously wrote about in my article “Dedicated servers under water, literally !?”? Prospects for breeding fish in the servers? ” What can I say, the guys keep up with the times. It's nice when the financial side goes into the background, and innovations are primary.
A little about the data center. The “Switch AMS1” data center is part of the Switch Datacenter Group. The mission of the group is to create and manage an ultra-energy-efficient network of data centers located in strategic locations. Switch AMS1 is not an exception, because it is located in the business district of southeastern Amsterdam, where one of the largest densities of international backbone networks in Europe is observed, which allows you to connect to the highest-level backbone operators at the most favorable conditions. The data center has a total area of ​​8.320 m2 / 89,555 ft2 and is equipped with the latest technology, adheres to the policy of "Carrier Neutral", when the subscriber can choose which "Internet providers" to use. And the choice is really huge!
Switch AMS1 has more than 460 fibers from 40 different trunk transport providers, such as Level3, Verizon, Zayo, BT, Colt, KPN, Atrato, Cogent, euNetworks, Relined, and several Internet exchanges.
Customers are also offered the opportunity to have network connections with two separate “Meet-Me-Room” to connect their infrastructure. This means that customers are able to get a network of double redundancy, thanks to physically separated routes.
Ecology. What do you think, what percentage of all global carbon emissions is accounted for by all existing data centers? More than 2%! This is a huge number, just think that only data centers cause such a huge load on the environment! Of course, it is not as high as from enterprises or from automobiles, but relatively large. This problem is well understood in the Switch Datacenter Group, because their data centers comply with the latest international standards and in environmental terms, in terms of energy efficiency (PUE). While the Amsterdam authorities require the city’s data centers to adhere to the PUE energy efficiency indicator of no more than 1.3 (with an average of 1.9 for the global market), Switch Datacenter Group achieved the value of 1.27 in 2012 when Switch AMS1 opened, by the end of 2013, this figure was reduced to 1.08, thanks to the use of suppliers of green energy and the use of unique technologies in the field of cooling and energy consumption. Which is certainly expensive, but in addition to reducing the burden on the environment, this also creates economic benefits in the long term, and Switch Datacenter Group understands this.
Already, in some data center segments, the above-mentioned cooling in liquid is used, which will make it possible in the future to achieve PUE 0.9 and below, if we transfer the entire data center to this ultra-efficient revolutionary technology.
"Data Center for the order." I have always been of the opinion that it only makes sense to build very large data centers if the task is to reduce operating costs and PUE to a minimum. This is obvious, because by default the larger data center receives more favorable conditions, both from the electricity supplier and from the backbone providers, and of course, there is more room for innovation. But what if you definitely need your own playground? It will be much more profitable to build a data center in the data center, and this solution will be no worse in terms of reliability, but even more reliable (more choice of backbone providers, a more extensive and well-coordinated team of specialists who will be engaged in supporting the data center infrastructure). Switch AMS1 offers this service and is ready to organize mini data centers ranging from 500 m2 / 5381 ft2.
This solution was chosen, the initial infrastructure - 40 server cabinets and 100 Gbit / s to the network with the possibility of a gradual increase in both the number of cabinets and the capacity of the network channels. And the most important result of this is complete freedom for our clients, which we wrote about above, with minimal operating costs for customers in the first place! It is time to reveal the details.
The essence of "complete freedom" in the data center "Switch AMS1" for our subscribers
1. We understand that not everyone knows how to plan and take everything into consideration and are ready to deliver / assemble a custom built solution for you during the working day, sometimes within an hour, and if it is VERY urgent - even on weekends and holidays at 99.9 % of cases! However, we still ask you not to hope for a case, it may happen that you are not lucky, we will sort out the servers of some configuration, or 10-gigabit inclusions will run out (a large client will come and buy the entire reserve). Try to plan everything in time. For our part, we can only guarantee that we will make every effort to help you and provide the equipment in the shortest possible time, if you did not manage to plan something.
2. All servers are connected with dedicated guaranteed communication channels bandwidth in gigabits at least how much traffic you need you determine! You can add traffic at any time, either make it non-tariffable or increase the channel to the required bandwidth. At the moment, we provide servers with 5, 10, 25 and 100TB of total traffic per month on a dedicated 1 Gbps channel, as well as 1, 2 and 10 Gigabit connections without traffic. Please note that due to the high cost of 10-gigabit connections, we do not always have the opportunity to keep them in a “hot standby”. Also note that when switching from 2-gigabit inclusion to 10-gigabit, the ip-address is likely to change due to a significant difference in the inclusion technology.
3. Now when you request “I want to connect all my servers to a local network and rent a switch” you do not need to rent a private closet, it will be enough to order all the servers you need in ONE order and a switch to them, as well as pay for interconnect (fee depends on network topology , the number of servers connected to the local network).
4. We are also ready to provide the ability to use hardware firewall and traffic balancers, as well as individual configurations and solutions. However, such orders will require the conclusion of a long-term contract for a period of at least 1 year, or payment for this period, of course, with a good discount.
5. In all servers we provide IPMI for free.
And the best part - the lowest possible prices for services in this data center have been established, we have ensured that the cost of custom-built services is close to the cost of standard services, and in some cases even lower due to the traffic limit.
You can order servers on this site through our website http://ua-hosting.com.ua/nl-servers.html , choosing in the configurator "Netherlands, DC Switch (Amsterdam), complete freedom, delivery within 1 business day + free IPMI with all servers! ”
In conclusion, I want to show a few photos from the part of the data center where your servers are located, let's start with the kernel:
The room where custom built solutions are built for you:
Well, an isolated module that hosts some of the subscribers:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/239253/
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