Brightsolid, a subsidiary of the British publisher DC Thompson, has begun the construction of a £5 million data center in Aberdeen, on the east coast of Scotland.

The facility, being built by Keysource, is primarily aimed at customers in the energy, financial and government sectors. It is set to open in April 2015.

DC Thomson is well-known for The Beano children’s comic, which has been in print since 1938, giving life to such golden age characters as Dennis the Menace and Biffo the Bear (pictured).

Fuelled by oil
DC Thomson launched its data center arm in 1995 as Scotland Online, and renamed it Brightsolid in 2008.

Brightsolid’s upcoming Tier III facility, located at the Aberdeen Journal’s offices on the Lang Stracht, will offer 2,200 square meters of white space, with a projected PUE of 1.25. Phase I of the project will deliver 200 high density racks, with a power capacity of 30kW each. Phase II will add another 200 racks.

Brightsolid already runs a data center in Dundee, and the new facility will complement the older one.

“It is strategically important for us because Aberdeen is just 2 milliseconds away from Dundee,” CEO Richard Higgs told The Press and Journal. “That is perfect for replication of data and synchronicity between the sites, which means it can provide all sorts of clever, totally resilient solutions.”

As a major center for the European petroleum industry, Aberdeen benefits from cheap energy and great network connectivity. And as a city facing the North Sea, it remains cold most of the year – something that should ease the task of cooling the servers.

In September, CityFibre announced plans to build a 1Gb fiber network across Aberdeen, to create what it called Scotland’s first “Gigabit City”.