The System
The Data Centre
Escendency hosting servers are located within a purpose built data centre offering the highest levels of physical and electronic security and reliability. Additionally, pro-active monitoring and management ensure excellent levels of application availability and performance.
This section describes some of the key features of the Escendency hosting solution.
Physical Security And Reliability
Access to the building is gained via a card and combination key press security system designed specifically for the data centre by Group 4.
CCTV Monitoring is performed by 16 colour cameras around the facility. Images are simultaneously recorded and monitored by both onsite security personnel and a remote facility.
Unauthorised activity in restricted areas can be detected via the intrusion detection system that detects movement and alerts security.
The data centre is manned 24x7 by both security personnel and technical staff.
Climate control systems monitor and adjust temperature and moisture levels. The suite uses tightly controlled gas based air conditioners each of which is of a dual circuit design with two chillers, compressors and condensers providing therefore two completely independent circuits for maximum availability.
There is ample redundancy in the calculation should a unit fail, within the current configuration of 7x40Kw Airedale down flow units. The units are N+1 redundant ensuring that the environment is maintained at 20C and 50% relative humidity even in the event of equipment failure.
An automatic fire detection system has been installed throughout the operational area of the premises to provide people, property and system protection.
The Fire prevention system is constructed of strategically placed detectors (smoke and heat) creating 'zones' within the floor and ceiling voids. The system works on a 'double knock' basis, comprising ionization and smoke detectors.
Fire suppression is provided by FM-200 gas which is released into the atmosphere from tanks located around the building.
Reliability
Two 160KVA uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) protect servers from power outages and condition the power output to sensitive equipment. In the event of a failure of the utility power, the UPS will immediately take the load of all servers and network hardware, supplying uninterrupted electricity from large batteries.
In the event of a utility power outage lasting more than a few minutes, an 800KVA diesel generator starts automatically, providing power to our systems. An 11,000 litre on-site fuel tank provides enough diesel to run the data centre independently for at least 48 hours in the event of an extended power outage.
Multiple redundant network connections help to ensure reliable Internet access to the data centre. Additionally, a fully redundant Internet backbone is maintained, to ensure availability in the event of a critical network infrastructure failure.
Server Reliability And Security
To ensure maximum reliability and to protect application data, our servers use hardware based raid arrays with data mirrored across disk drives, ensuring no data is lost in the event of a disk failure. Additionally mirrored disks are hot-swappable, allowing failed disks to be replaced without affecting system availability.
In the event of a catastrophic server failure, redundant servers are available to allow rapid recovery, with daily server and database backups taken to minimise risk of data loss. Backups are stored at two separate physical locations (in different parts of the United Kingdom) to ensure that systems and data can be recovered in the event of the total destruction of the data centre.
To ensure the security of our servers, a combination of Cisco hardware firewalls and rigorous IP Security Policies monitor and control all network traffic to prevent malicious access to the system.
Administrative access to Escendency servers can only be obtained from within Escendency's own corporate networks, which are themselves protected by robust security measures.
To further ensure reliable and secure operation, servers are pro-actively monitored to rapidly identify performance or security problems. System and security patches are regularly applied by support engineers.
Application and Database Monitoring
In addition to the security and reliability of the physical servers we also use a continuous availability monitoring system running from multiple points to ensure that both websites and databases are functioning correctly and to an acceptable level of performance. Escendency support staff are notified automatically in the event of any service interruption.