Brightsolid, a subsidiary of British publisher DC Thompson, has opened its second Tier III data center, at the Lang Stracht offices of the Aberdeen Journal in Aberdeen, Scotland. 

Completed in nine months, the site cost £5m and provides the first Microsoft Azure-enabled cloud platform in Scotland. It is located at the center of Aberdeen’s so-called energy triangle, benefitting from some of the most abundant power in Europe. Brightsolid parent DC Thompson is best known for the British comic books Beano and Dandy, as well as numerous scottish publications.  

aberdeen build team
Aberdeen build team

 A need for capacity

“We decided to build our next Tier III data center in Aberdeen for a number of reasons,” said Richard Higgs, CEO of Brightsolid. ”Our primary facility in Dundee was reaching capacity, and expansion was always in our business strategy. After a detailed review of the market we realised that Aberdeen had an absolute need for a world class data center.”

At full capacity, the 2,200 square meter carrier neutral facility will be able to store the same amount of data that Facebook currently holds on a global scale. It will connect Aberdeen nationally and internationally through high-speed, low latency links – including a 100Gb link from Aberdeen to London. 

aberdeen data centre corridors
Colorful Aberdeen data center corridors

The site was produced with help from Keysource, whose managing director Mike West said: ”As with any project of this scale, we had to overcome a number of engineering challenges but through working together closely, Brightsolid now has one of the most efficient data centers in the country.” 

flooring down in data centre 1
Flooring down in data center 1

Tier III certified by the Uptime Institute, Brightsolid Aberdeen promises 99.99 percent uptime, and is certified compliant to ISO 27001:2013 for security and ISO 22301:2012 for  business continuity. 

aberdeen data hall 1 complete
Aberdeen data hall 1 complete

The site uses Keysource’s Ecofris cooling technology and will have a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.25, which makes it environmentally better and cheaper to run. It will have a 1MW IT load, and can support up to 25kW per rack with no hotspots. It has 2N critical power with N+1 backup, with 24x7 onsite security. 

The data hall skeleton was complete by the end of May 2015, and by the end of July the data hall fit out was done, with the Brightsolid room ready by August 17th, and the core and partner networksin place by September 25.