Data center with interesting physical protection

We use DataPro data center for our cloud. Yes, the Technoserv integrator built data centers and server nodes, yes, we can do it, yes, we have the necessary engineers on staff, but we prefer to give it to outsourcing. Why? Because a data center in the form of IaaS is very simplifying, like a refrigerator or a warehouse. Nothing romantic - just a place to put the server. Cooling, power, regulations, and everything else - this is a lot of competencies that are not needed in the cloud. Keeping someone else's servers on is a separate business.



Why did we choose them? Because they are paranoid in the classic military sense. For example, never depend on one vendor. Or let's just get to our server and see how many times we are stopped on the way.

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First, we will stop the fence with a set of sensors. If you shake him anywhere or try to climb on him, then the vibration sensor will work, and the guard patrol will immediately come out.



Here is the fence:











Then they have an entrance to the building where you need to log in. True, there have been cases when, instead of a pass, they rolled a server to show for 2-3 million rubles, but they would not allow the turnstile any further. There you have to introduce yourself normally, take an RFID tag and write down passport data. Next is another turnstile and office part, where engineers and administrative teams of those who hold iron in the data center are sitting. We also sit there sometimes.







Okay, suppose you managed to get there. Now we need to get into the necessary machine building. On the way to the machine room, there is such a surprise:







This is a vestibule, inside - two (or more) doors. In the photo on the left - the technical room, which opens with a special master key, on the right - the machine room itself, where access via electronic pass. That is, the process equipment engineer (employee, by the way, DataPro!) Simply does not have access to the room with the racks.







The racks themselves also deserve attention. Here are the usual locked ones:







But we use additional protective perimeters (grids). And here, behind the bars, only a small part of the servers:







Each data center customer chooses such grids to his own taste. I want rods more often, so that you can not push your hand even to a locked rack - no question. I want blinds - no question. The grilles of some particularly cautious and suspicious customers go under the raised floor and into the false ceiling.







Here is the dispatcher service with round-the-clock monitoring of the data center:







This is the duty engineer of the maintenance service. In the round-the-clock shift of such engineers more than one. The security service of the data center (security) has approximately the same separate room, only with stricter access than to the computer room, and data from the video cameras is displayed there.

Here, the maintenance engineer controls the operation of all data center equipment, for example, the temperature in the machine rooms, transmitted by temperature sensors from cold and hot corridors, directly at the racks:







You can go and inspect the equipment visually, with your own eyes (by the way, the duty engineers of the operation department perform regular rounds with equipment inspection), but this will only happen if there is an admission to the appropriate premises:







You can enjoy the view of the sensors:







Again, what we particularly like, even strictly in its own part, the data center operation team does everything very carefully and meticulously. Here are the DRIBP (these are such great uninterruptible power supplies, but without traditional batteries) and labeling on cables:







According to DRIP, there are also two vendors, by the way.







Everywhere tidy layout:



















Although, of course, customers of the data center inside racks have hastily mounted “snot”:







There are comfortable banquet tables, usually used as console carts:







On the roof, too, everything is seized:







Rectangular boxes just below the cameras are light:







In all rooms, including this, - video surveillance:







Actually, the end of a simple tour.









Director of Engineering DataPro Systems Engineering - Andrey Kuchin



That's why we rent a data center - the guys know a lot about reliability, security and maintain the level of operation. But even with this approach, it is impossible to attach to one vendor and one site (although our equipment is located in several machine rooms) - so soon we will have another new site, including for georeserving.