Perth iX was established on the ground floor of the 'Quadrant' building in Perth's central business district in 2001, at a cost of $3.6 million.
The co-location facility was purchased by voice and data network operator Vocus Communications for just under $6.3 million in March 2011. A swipe card is required to pass the glass entrance doors.
Visitors are required to call Vocus staff from a second set of security doors to have their identity verified and be escorted to the next checkpoint. The facility is monitored on a 24x7 basis.
The third checkpoint identifies staff and visitors using biometrics and a security code.
The Quadrant's curved, smash- and bullet-resistant glass walls contribute to the 385-square-metre data centre's unique layout. Some space is wasted on curved corners, where rectangular racks do not fit. This is one of the facilities hot aisles; cold aisles are contained. The data centre floor is raised from 200 to 1200mm off street level to prevent ram-raid attacks.
FM200 fire retardant gas is deployed under instruction from a VESDA (Very Early-warning Smoke Detection Aparatus) system. Any sprinklers in the room have been disabled.
Power, data wiring and air-conditioning is delivered from under the raised floor, although some power and cables are provided from overhead trays. Perth iX's 199 racks operate at 4kW. The facility has access to two power grids, and a UPS that uses seven tonnes of batteries to run the full data centre for 15 minutes. A dedicated diesel generator in Quadrant's basement is designed to kick in within 30 seconds of a failure and can run unattended for 8 hours at maximum load.
Perth iX had 220 customers, including about 80 large corporations. The facility is operating at capacity, although 30 racks are expected to become available from mid-July. Half of those have been pre-sold.
Perth iX's eight-month-old condensers, worth $400,000, are secured by a $80,000 cage. The facility undergoes regular maintenance; general manager of operations Adam Gardner estimated maintenance costs to be $750,000 in the past year.
Perth iX was established on the ground floor of the 'Quadrant' building in Perth's central business district in 2001, at a cost of $3.6 million.