London & South East Premier Construction

Virtus welcomes LONDON2

Virtus Data Centre, London
Written by Roma Publications

Virtus Data Centre, London

Virtus has announced the opening of its newest London data centre.

Opened in September this year, LONDON2, is the latest, flexible and efficient data centre specialist from Virtus who have an array of data centres throughout the country.

Situated in Hayes in West London LONDON2 has been designed and purpose built to be the most efficient data centre in the capital, as well as one of the most efficient in the world, to help customers provide better, faster performing and more flexible digital IT services at lower cost.

Virtus has used its innovative ‘intelligent by design’ principles to deliver a modular, highly efficient facility. LONDON2 is designed to the BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard and has been awarded Tier III certification by the Uptime Institute. The centre delivers the lowest operational costs of a premium London data centre through the use of technology-driven cost to build and operate optimisation.

LONDON2 is powered by renewable energy sources and will also be the first data centre in London to deploy a ground breaking indirect fresh-air evaporative cooling technology, which will dramatically decrease energy consumption and bring site power usage effectiveness to below 1.2.

Those using LONDON2 are able to utilise the 11.4MW of IT load across 65,000 sq. ft. of Tier III net technical space. The site is on a highly secure campus, away from main roads and hidden behind five metre-high security fences as well as having security on site every day and night.

The centre has been constructed in the connectivity ‘Goldilocks zone’ which is close enough to central London for low latency performance and active-active replication, but far away enough to meet government and financial services business continuity standards.

LONDON2 also provides customers with complete transparency and control of their colocated data centre usage through the Virtus Intelligent Portal; the industry’s first free Data Centre Infrastructure Management – DCIM – solution for colocation customers.  The DCIM’s self-service tools allow clients to visualise and manage space, power, cooling and energy efficiency through a single pane of glass, either remotely or from one of the customer-dedicated offices or café areas in the facility.

Virtus Data Centre, London

The data centre has six high quality data halls which are all capable of being subdivided, allowing clients to have anything from a cabinet in a shared space to their own suite or data hall with dedicated power and cooling. Customers can also take space using Virtus’ industry-leading agile commercials, including Virtus Flex.

Neil Cresswell, CEO, VIRTUS Data Centres commented:

“The opening of LONDON2 is another significant milestone for Virtus Data Centres.  LONDON2 is an award-winning, world class facility and London’s premier new Tier III certified data centre. It offers our London customers one of the world’s most agile, connected and efficient data centre solutions, and is the most efficient in London, with indirect fresh-air cooling for improved customer energy efficiency, flexible contracts, unique Virtus Intelligent Design technology and a broad and deep range of connectivity options, all combining to give a low Total Cost of Service for Tier III certified quality.”

Cresswell continues:

“We are delighted that the project has been completed on time, on budget and that five valued customers as well as 10 carriers have signed up for LONDON2 before the doors have opened. It all highlights the growing appetite for intelligent, fully-optimised data centres in metro locations in the UK, close to large user bases for better application and content performance for today’s new digital economy. This is all hugely encouraging as we plan for the next part of the Virtus story, LONDON3.”

About the author

Roma Publications