Welcome to the High Availability Hosting Blog

Evaporative Cooler
Our new cooling system went fully live this month, replacing the conventional air-conditioning units which have now been powered down (but remain as standby / backup units).  Due to the different way the cooler chills the air the process of changeover took 3 days but went without a hitch or service impact. We have now reduced our cooling energy usage by about 75%!

Evaporative Cooler System Live!

Hot aisle containment
Planned from when the Sheffield Data Centre was still on paper, we have implemented hot aisle containment on the first block of 6 racks (4×2 – comms, vmware, customer).  Hot exhaust air is now contained and evacuated from the computer room without mixing with the chilled air being pumped in.  The net result is the computer room runs cooler, the hot air pumps need less energy, and chilled air isn’t contaminated with hot air causing an imbalance.  It also looks cool!
 
Containment of the next block of racks is due to start next week.

Hot Aisle Containment

Hot Aisle Containment - entrance to hot aisle

Standby Generator
The generator has been tested, and re-wired ready for connecting to the Sheffield Data Centre.  Only problem is every time we arrange the concrete slab laying and crane to move the generator, it snows or gets too cold for the concrete to harden quick enough.  Another attempt will be scheduled for the near future, watch this space!
 
New Mailgate (spam / virus filter) going live
We have implemented a new spam / virus filter based on ESVA, having been tested by a small number of users, we hope to make it fully live before the end of Feburary – the exising Windows / SmarterMail server will then be switched off.
 
With additional ESVA servers (loadbalanced), we are planning to offer a spam / virus filtering service for users outside our own hosted email.  Email will first be sent to us for screening before being sent back to your existing mail server.  Users will get a daily quarantine email showing whats been blocked, along with options to release or block the message.
 
Hyper-V
Final designs for the Hyper-V and VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) servers are now being drafted, we hope to start testing sometime in March.  Prices have not yet been fully set, but are looking around £35 a month for an entry level Windows / Linux server.  Contact us if you’d like to trial a Hyper-V Dedicated Server.

Hello!  Firstly, hope you like the new look blog.  We’ve moved the blog from the old home on the Sheffield Data Centre website  to a dedicated site here at www.hahosting.info – the new blog will have news, info, updates and media from HA Hosting,  TheVirtualCloud and the Sheffield Data Centre.  All the content from the original blog is here too.

This new look and feel for the blog is a sneak preview of what our websites will look like when they’re updated next week.  All  our websites will have a shared theme and flow into each other with common menus and headers.

We’ve got a lot going on right now, and we’ll be posting detailed updates later, but here’s what we’re up to in November:

HA Hosting

• Trials are being planned of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 with failover clustering for Virtual Dedicated Servers.
• Upgrade of the Client Control Panel due before christmas.

TheVirtualCloud

• New web hosting infrastructure on Windows Server 2008 is starting to be rolled out.
• Outlook Anywhere Hosted Exchange price reduced to just £6.50 per month for a 1GB mailbox.
• First trial customers for our upcoming Hosted SharePoint service are now live.
• Replacement DNS Name Servers are now live, customer migrations due soon.

Sheffield Data Centre

• Energy Saving Evaporative Cooling technology delivered to site, awaiting installation.
• Ground works for the site generator have started.
• Low Latency Network for gamers has been successfully trailed.
• Free Bandwidth Forever is being offered in the shared colo racks.
• 5Mbit for £50 per month package coming soon.

In the short term we’re working on the new cooling system in the Data Centre, preparing the network for the Unlimited Bandwidth Forever deals, and completing the rollout of the new web hosting infrastructure.  Detailed updates for everything will be posted soon, so watch this space!

… not our words, but the words of Now Then, a local Sheffield magazine which last month featured the Sheffield Data Centre in it’s “traders” section of their well circulated free magazine.

They write “These guys have a 100 Mb/s connection. That’s faster than public transport.”

… faster than a bendy bus I suppose.

They go on to write “In short, the Sheffield Data Centre is well located and equipped with all the mod cons. It provides high speed access in a secure and controlled environment, ideal for businesses with internet presence, retailers, manufacturers and online companies.”

After talking to us, the producers of the magazine are now looking to move their hosting away from their current provider to the Sheffield Data Centre, so next time you read their magazine while on a bus, think of us!

The full article is available here (click for larger image):

Now Then magazine SDC article

- Stuart.

Sorry for the update delay!  Been a busy week on site but not much photo worthy…

We’ve had the first fix electrics installed in the office, and the second fix electrics installed in the loading bay and entrance hall.  The ceilings and office partition walls have been skim plastered rather than filled (this is what’s taken most of the week to organise), the steel fibre trunking is complete, and we’ve installed the Paxton Access Control units and the generator automatic transfer switch…

…and finally BT have made live the first of the copper circuits entering the unit.  We’ll use this for DSL for management access.

Loading bay construction ongoing

Generator transfer switch arrives on site

Access control system installed

Computer room ceiling plastering underway

Steel fibre ducting under raised floor complete

2nd fix electrics ongoing, sockets and light switches installed

...oh there it is.

Got a toy delivered to site... a brand new Cisco 3825 for the end of the fibre. It's gone into storage for "testing" or is that "playing"... definately "testing" :-)

Electrical works have also started with the lighting circuits and supplies to the generator.