Telehouse Global Spotlight: Telehouse North Two — a New Site for a New Internet
September 28, 2016
London Docklands: Secure, Reliable Connectivity for Global Enterprises
The story of London and its Docklands is a narrative of global commerce that dates back to the Roman Empire. It was the Romans that first bridged the River Thames and built “Londinium,” which from 50 AD to 410, was the largest city in Britannia and a vital international port.
The city’s docks, most of which were built throughout the nineteenth century, were originally constructed to provide protection against the elements and river pirates, providing sheltered and secure anchorage for larger and greater numbers of shipping vessels as Britain rose to dominance among European trading empires.
London’s Docklands, which were active from 1805 through 1968, were surrounded by high walls and had room for more than 300 vessels. Its warehouses, four stories high, had space for over 200,000 tons of goods, including tobacco, dried fruit, canned foodstuffs, ivory, wool and spices.
Today, London is still a hub of global commerce and so are the Docklands, but the goods and services are now digital, and the need for secure storage and rapid transport to ever-expanding markets is still growing.
A Digital Bridge to the World
In the words of a recent report published by Deloitte, “London is a global city — arguably the world’s foremost business hub, of vital importance to the national, European and global economies.” Indeed, given the rise in financial globalization and London’s longtime standing as a powerful financial services, media and advertising center, the city has positioned itself as one of the best places to serve the world’s businesses.
In Europe and the UK, shrinking IT budgets and bottom line economic infeasibility are making it next to impossible for the vast majority of enterprises to own and operate their own data centers. The ever-increasing demands of data storage and high bandwidth availability, coupled with the need for increased data security and the non-availability of strategic locations for data centers, have always been key issues faced by organizations in today’s global business environment.
Telehouse operates four data centers in London, three at its Docklands campus in East London, consisting of Telehouse North (opened 1990), Telehouse East (opened 1999) and Telehouse West (opened 2010). Telehouse Metro, which opened 1997, is located near Silicon Roundabout. In 2014, Telehouse announced it would expand its iconic Docklands campus with the construction of Telehouse North Two, a $175 million data center, taking the total to five.
With two floors of secure colocation space, Telehouse North Two covers 259,000 square feet across an 11-story building within Telehouse’s existing 786,000 square-foot Docklands campus, whose site is conveniently located in proximity to the center of London.
Last month, the company launched the first phase of Telehouse North Two and confirmed the London Internet Exchange (LINX) as a partner. LINX, a network that provides the backbone to the UK’s internet, is one of the largest sites for internet traffic exchange in the world. The siting of LINX within Telehouse North Two ensures any increased demand for low-latency data flow or high volume traffic exchange will be met through the hosting of powerful 100GE capable routers at the facility. This capability is especially critical for the low latency requirements of network providers and financial services companies, as well the increased performance for video streaming and gaming for which proximity and connectivity are also essential.
Europe’s leading connectivity hub, the Telehouse Docklands campus has approximately 900 private and public peering ports into LINX as well as ultra-low latency routes to Europe, the U.S., Russia, Africa and Asia. Already the most highly-connected data center site in Europe, with direct access to a diverse range of connectivity partners, Telehouse’s investment in North Two further enhances connectivity at its Docklands campus. Offering a new site for a new internet, this enables Telehouse to meet the growing needs of Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and Over-the-Top (OTT) content providers resulting from the increase of cloud adoption and demand for content. Telehouse North Two also provides the infrastructure for its existing and new customers to expand, with direct connections to its base of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Application Service Providers (ASPs), carriers, mobile providers, global enterprises and financial services companies.
Reliable and Secure
Combining efficiency with reliable connectivity, Telehouse North Two is the only UK data center that owns an on-campus 132kV grid substation directly connected to the National Grid, thereby reducing transmission losses and providing exceptional power density and service continuity. Telehouse North Two also features unrivaled levels of security, with gated entrances manned 24/7/365 and more than 400 movement activated CCTV cameras.
Would-be river pirates, please take notice.
