Johannesburg, 09 Oct 2009
Wireless broadband Internet provider, iBurst, has completely revamped its data centre using APC by Schneider Electric solutions, becoming the first local company to implement APC by Schneider Electric's InRow cooling racks with Thermal Containment.
Since its inception in 2005, iBurst has been providing South Africans with continued high-speed connectivity for their corporate or personal needs, through broadband Internet and e-mail services.
According to James Devine, Value Added Services Manager at iBurst, the organisation's previous data centre had an older style design, with a small raised floor, which meant that under floor cables were difficult to track and finding faults took time.
"When iBurst needed to move to interim offices that would house us for around 43 months, we decided that it was necessary to build a new data centre that would be flexible and modular enough to move easily when the time came," he explains. "We also wanted a solution that could expand with the company as needed."
Having successfully utilised APC solutions within its earlier data centre, iBurst opted to implement APC InRow cooling racks with a hot aisle containment system to prevent warm air from mixing with room air; NetBotz security and environmental appliances for access control and monitoring and InfraStruXure Manager, a management platform that increases visibility of server rooms and smaller data centres by outlining the health and status of all APC devices.
"The new data centre provides us with the ability to manage all aspects of the data centre from a central location and provides real-time alerts to any potential problem before it impacts on our service to our customers, who are our most valuable assets.
"The advanced design of the cabinets eliminates the chance of an accidental service impacting event due to tracing cables," says Devine.
Designed to completely separate the supply and return air paths of the company's IT equipment, APC's Thermal Containment products ensures the warmest possible air is returned to the InRow cooling units, increasing the efficiency, capacity and predictability of the cooling system.
"The APC solutions met all of iBurst's requirements," states Devine. "Not only does our new cooling set-up provide us with N+1 redundancy, the maintenance of these products is also very simple and rack accessibility has been greatly improved.
"In addition, the NetBotz system has allowed us to install cameras on the exit and entry points of the new data centre with linked door sensors so we can track exactly what is happening at all times and why."
Footage from the cameras is then saved on InfraStruXure Central, a scalable monitoring system which collects, organises and distributes critical alerts, surveillance video and key information, providing a unified view of complex physical infrastructure environments from anywhere on the network.
"NetBotz is an active monitoring solution designed to protect against physical threats, both environmental and human, that can cause disruption or downtime to IT infrastructure," says Shane Rowan, APC by Schneider Electric reseller development manager.
"These NetBotz devices are capable of video surveillance and monitoring to record human activity. They can provide temperature, humidity, door contact, dry contact, vibration, smoke, two-way audio monitoring, spot leak and rope leak monitoring.
"In essence, the very modularity of the APC solutions has made it possible for iBurst to design its new data centre in the most scalable way, providing an extremely well managed environment," he concludes.
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