Infrastructure

We're sensible, safe folks — you might even call us boring. But when you need a hosting partner; safe, secure, and stable... isn't that just what you want?

Gossamer Threads maintains two primary prescenes: a North American location in Vancouver, and a European location in London. We can offer services in either location depending on your needs. This could include anything from disaster recovery to geographic load balancing. We leverage leading data centre companies to manage the physical infrastructure, while Gossamer manages everything from the network to the physical hardware.

Facility image - North America

North America Data Centre

Overview

The North American data centre is an eighteen-story facility built by IBM and now managed by Bell, with 13,500 ft² per floor. A poured concrete frame supports glass and concrete curtain walls. Secure access and closed circuit television cameras provide enhanced security, while a number of emergency and fire procedures are in place to ensure data is never lost or damaged.

Facility

  • Buildings and structures are designed to the National Building Code of Canada (in effect at the time of construction) that includes provision for wind loads, snow loads, and earthquake loads
  • Poured concrete floors and 1.5 hour rated fire doors on stairwells indicate 2 hour fire resistive rating
  • 2 hour rated fire separations complete with self-closing metal doors provided to separate co-location room from Bell telecommunications equipment room and electrical room

Power and Cooling

  • Clean power with 95% of power coming from renewable energy source
  • Dedicated N+1 redundant air-conditioning system is used for space cooling within telecommunications equipment rooms
  • Condensing units are located on the roof, with secure access provided by security
  • Onsite diesel generator with one week supply of diesel

Emergency/Fire

  • Typical non-combustible interior walls, non-combustible T-Bar ceilings and carpeted floor finish
  • Equipment is protected by an automatic FM200 gaseous extinguishing system
  • All building areas are provided with ionization smoke detection coverage
  • Multiple power feeds entering building

Security and Access

  • Secure access provided by proximity card-access system, tracked via computer software system
  • Closed circuit television camera system provided throughout facility
  • Interior walls protected with an interstitial wire mesh for added security in building common areas
  • Meets requirements for organizations looking to be SSAE 16 or PCI/DSS compliant

Facility image - London

European Data Center

Overview

With 19,000m² of data centre space, our European facility is managed by Telehouse. We provide a high quality data centre environment with redundant cooling systems and on-site engineers 24/7, to ensure system availability.

Facility

  • Photovoltaic cells on data center roof contribute to energy supply and reduce reliance on external energy sources
  • Waste heat distribution system recovers waste heat lost by the facility and pre-cool the chilled water, reducing chiller and dry air cooler power requirements
  • Higher efficiency of heat transfer with plate heat exchanger

Power and Cooling

  • Power and air-conditioning provided with built-in redundancy for top quality continuity and reliability; including UPS and back-up generators at all sites
  • Fully redundant 2N+1 cooling and UPS
  • Four redundant HV power systems, from separate grids to each building on the site

Emergency/Fire

  • Two stage fire detection system that monitors the under floor and the room
  • Very early smoke detection alarms (VESDA) installed throughout the facility
  • Planned systems designed to minimize any possible customer disruption, ensure any minor problems remain localized

Security and Access

  • Awarded the ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management
  • Independent client card identification access system
  • Secure & monitored single-person point of entry, physically guarded 24/7 and integrated digital video camera surveillance
  • Strict security processes in place to ensure delivery and loading of goods are secure
  • CCTV coverage for the perimeter, common areas and facilities management suites
  • Protected perimeter fence, fitted with intruder sensing

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