The Data Centre Behind Gossamer Host
June 22, 2007
As a software company selling products for websites, we deal with all types of hosting environments, yet few perform to our expectations. Customers often outgrow their hosting or experience hosting related problems and have to go back and forth between their hosting companies and us, when all they want is to have their site running smoothly.
Our response? Nuts to this, we’ll do it ourselves! With our extensive software expertise coupled with the experience gained in dealing with hundreds of hosting companies, we created a platform that truly expresses how we think hosting should be.
And so, in 2002, Gossamer Host was born! Come along with us and have a gander at what we’ve built in our data centre in Vancouver, BC!
Current Picture
Since inception, we now run and manage a total of 250 servers with 50 Terabytes of disk space. That’s a lot of terabyte love! In addition, many high profile clients and heavily trafficked sites rely on Gossamer Host for their web-based operations.
From fortune-100 companies using our Request Tracker Hosting service, to busy community sites using our products, and even to clustered websites who need redundancy in every piece of hardware, Gossamer Host caters to many and all unique needs; there is no “typical” user.
All manners of high-end, industry grade technologies at work for us at Gossamer Host:
- All servers are at least Dual Core, either Dual Athlon or Dual Opteron; some are Quad-Core!
- A suite of Cisco switches and routers with our own gigabit fibre
- An APC infrastructure
- Network Appliance Filers
In addition to our data centre located in Vancouver, BC, we also have data centres in Toronto, ON, and also merry ol’ London, England!
Exclusive Tour
I was given an exclusive tour of the Gossamer Data Centres this week, and managed to discretely sneak in a camera (complete with a photographer — it came with the camera) to take some super secret photos of the whole hosting operation!
Entrance
Upon entrance, the noise of 250 servers blasts your eardrums. Even with that number of units in full operation, the room temperature was cooler than the other side of the pillow. Ridiculous!
The Servers
Behold, the majestic Gossamer servers! These gentle beasts serve up our client’s daily internet needs and are cared for under our ever watchful, loving eyes.
Beautiful Cabling
Have you ever seen such beautiful cabling? It’s like artwork!
Not So Beautiful Cabling
Just a teaser for an upcoming blog entry. Pictured above is an unknown hosting setup located beside us. Do you know what’s powering your website? :p
Dedicated and Knowledgeable Staff
From time to time, if you watch closely, you may catch a glimpse of one of our server trolls popping out from his cavern to monitor ‘teh dataz’ moving through our racks. Hey there, little fella! Toss him a few complementary breadcrumbs, and he’ll be eating out of your hand!
Security
Security is tight at the Gossamer data centre. These cameras are equipped with night vision capability and allow us remotely view our data centre.
Many monitoring features are in place to really put us in the know when it comes to the environment of our servers. The yellow device monitors temperature and humidity. The FM 200 Waterless Fire Suppressor ensures that our server racks maintain their integrity in the unlikely event of a fire. All of this data is relayed to us remotely to alert us to potential issues.
Command Central
We call this Command Central (OK…only I do…). It allows us to connect to servers through a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse).
Lovely WebMux Load Balancers
Pictured above is quality load balancing thanks to the folks at CAI Networks. Check how our load balancers play a role in our Clustered Hosting Plans.
Console Server
A recent addition to the data centre. It allows “out of band” management – i.e. access to the network remotely, even if the network is completely down or unavailable.
Blade Systems
Just a few of our Blade Server installations. For those of you who don’t know what a Blade server is, good ol’ Wikipedia defines them as, “self-contained computer servers, designed for high density.” These puppies allow us to save 20-30% space while still maintaining computing power.
AC Units - Raw Cooling Power!
Part of the reason why the data centre is cool as a cucumber.
Questions? Comments?
This concludes the grand tour of Gossamer Host’s illustrious data centre!(Turn in your headphones to the right please). We’d love to hear from you! Feel free to leave us any feedback and we’ll get one of our server trolls right on it.
For more information about our hosting services, visit our lovely Gossamer Host page.
Tags: data centre, Gossamer Host, servers
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Awesome post - very interesting tour of your great facilities!
June 26th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Thanks Klaus!
It’s the beautiful cabling that did it for you eh?
June 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Nice place. You guys just keep on movin’ along…
December 29th, 2007 at 9:16 am
very interesting tour of your great facilities nice tools and info
March 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Now that is NICE cabling!
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 am
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May 30th, 2008 at 12:15 am
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June 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
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