Data Centre Site Information

We maintain a high level of security across all of our data centre sites.

Our security procedures and infrastructure include, but are not limited to:

• 24x7, 365 days a year manned security and site monitoring.

• Biometric access policies.

• Smart Card access policies.

• Internal and external CCTV systems, running and monitored 24x7, 365 days a year.

• Security breach alarms.

We also have strict procedures in place for any visitors coming to our data centre; including:

• All visitors must have a genuine reason to visit a site.

• All visitors must provide us with at least 24 hour notice before coming onto site.

• All visitors must have a valid form of photo identification.

• All visitors must have the access code, which was generated for this visit.

• Once they arrive, all visitors will only have access to the section of the site they require access to.

• We retain the right to deny access to anyone who breaks any of the terms above.

Our site security policies are regularly audited, by a third party auditing company, as part of our security ISO certificates. To find out more, please read the FAQ section on “What ISO certificates do you have?”.

If you have any further questions about our sites, please look through our FAQ section or feel free to get in touch, and we will be happy to help.

We have several data centre sites spread across the UK and even some sites around the globe. Our data centres vary in size and setup; but all maintain high levels of security and quality of service.

Our data centres have:

• Strict security policies; including:

  • 24x7, 365 days a year manned security and monitoring

  • Smart card and/or biometric access policies

  • Internal and external CCTV systems

  • Security breach alarms.

• Back-up power infrastructure; including:

  • Generators

  • UPS units

  • Dual independent power feeds.

• 24x7, 365 days a year support; with our sites having Network Operations Centre engineers on site all year round, ready to help.

• Stable environmental conditions; including:

  • 24x7 environmental monitoring systems

  • Constant evaluation and testing of all environmental control systems

  • N+1 redundant Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems

  • Fully redundant air handling units which provide constant fresh airflow

  • In-built fire suppression systems.

• Network Interconnectivity; including:

  • Diverse fibre routing via multiple carriers

  • Cross connection to a number of Tier 1 carriers

  • Scalable architecture, including multiple redundant core switches and routers

As part of the Iomart group, you can find more details about our data centre sites through iomart’s website:

https://www.iomart.com/about-iomart/uk-data-centres/

If you have any further question which are not answered by our FAQ page or iomart’s webpage, please feel free to get in touch and we will be happy to help.

Our Datacentre Infrastructure is Tier 3

A Tier 3 data centre has multiple paths for power and cooling and systems in place to update and maintain it without taking it offline. It has an expected uptime of 99.982% (1.6 hours of downtime annually).

Fundamentally, your applications should be hosted in at least a Tier 2 data centre but preferably Tiers 3 or 4. The Tier system is a guide for the datacentre infrastructure design

As you move up each Tier you can expect more redundancy:

• Tier 2 data centres: redundant capacity components
• Tier 3 data centres: meet or exceed Tier 2 requirements; multiple independent distribution paths that serve IT equipment; hardware is dual powered
• Tier 4 data centres: meet or exceed Tier 3 requirements; the facility is fault-tolerant through electrical, storage and distribution networks; cooling equipment is dual powered.

The Tier system can be used as a rough indicator of how much downtime you can expect from your application’s data centre.

As Tier level corresponds to cost, you need to decide what level of redundancy you can afford and potentially how much application downtime you can accept.

Moving from Tier 3 to Tier 4, for example, will increase your hosting costs significantly.