ProTech Security

What are data centers?
A data center is essentially a computer room – a physical facility that allows you to operate and manage your servers, networks and other computer equipment in a controlled environment. Herakles Data guarantees uninterrupted power, large multi-carrier network connections, physical and network security, not to mention 24x7 monitoring and full technical support.

Why outsource to a data center?
Setting up your own data center or computer room is an expensive proposition. Apart from the large capital expenditures, there are the high day-to-day operational costs. By outsourcing you are leveraging the substantial investment that a data center proprietor has made in designing, building, managing and maintaining the data center. Outsourcing enables you to spend your budget dollars on other areas of your business. In this scenario, it makes sense to outsource this service to a co-location, network-neutral data center.

Co-location
Co-location means that you rent specific space to operate your servers, along with the servers of other companies, in a common physical location. Each company’s equipment is physically secured inside a lockable wire cage or cabinet. Colocation offers you the flexibility to upgrade and grow your technology requirements as your business grows -without having to make additional capital investments. When you enter into a co-location agreement, you significantly reduce your IT Cost-of Ownership and are assured a much higher level of service, without all the management headaches.

Benefits of Co-location

Benefits of Co-location include:

• Cost savings in the range of 20%-35% (Gartner) Very high availability of IT systems – 99.999%
• Business Continuity for your IT systems in the event of a disaster
• Company records and data are safe and protected
• Flexibility to quickly/easily expand IT needs without significant capital outlay
• Freedom to focus on your core competencies rather than your IT infrastructure
• Precision-controlled, managed, redundant environmental systems
• 24x7 power back up systems for all your equipment – no downtime or disruption due to utility power failures or black-out periods
• State-of-the-art dry-pipe, pre-action fire suppression – no losses due to fire
• High-level physical security with onsite security officers, surveillance cameras, pin pad and bio-metric systems to prevent unauthorized entry
• Flexibility of adding new systems when required and at a nominal cost

Additional specific advantages you can expect with co-location

Connectivity Advantages:
Using T1 or DS3 lines to connect your networks across long distances is expensive, both to acquire and maintain and not as reliable as the fiber optic connections at a data center. Co-location gives you increased connectivity and greater redundancy without the prohibitive cost.

Greater network Redundancy means Maximum up-time:
Your business critical applications will always be up and accessible. We offer eleven network carriers whose fiber optic lines terminate at our data center. We also support wireless networks.

BGP4 Routing:
If one provider’s connection fails, BGP4 allows instant failover and re-routes your critical data over a different path with an alternate provider. Downtime is non-existent.

Disaster Recovery:
We also provide disaster recovery services. In the event of downtime with your primary IT system, the entire network switches to a duplicate system. Outsourced disaster recovery costs a fraction of what it would to set it up in-house.

Regulatory Compliance:
Having you IT systems and data located or replicated in a data center will help your company achieve compliance with Sarbanes, Oxley, HIPAA, FED Banking Regulations, SAS 70, etc.

Technical Support Advantages:
You can expect the highest levels of dedicated service from our certified engineers and technicians on a 7X24, everyday basis.

Service Level Agreement (SLA):
A strict SLA ensures that you get a guaranteed level of services.

Experience advantage:
You get the advantage of our years of experience in managing data centers and qualified technical personnel working to keep your business critical systems functioning smoothly around the clock.

Uninterruptible Power

Dedicated 69 KV Substation and Transformer Yard
The facility is a priority customer of and have our own dedicated Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) substation and transformer yard located on our property. Our substation is fed by redundant substations located a quarter mile away at the regional Natomas-Area SMUD Complex.

4 - Caterpillar Diesel Generators
The facility has four (4) two-megawatt diesel generators (N+1). Each 16 cylinder generator is fully redundant (starters, batteries, fuel pumps, etc.) and kept at a constant 120 degrees in order to start, synchronize and load balance within 13 seconds of a power outage. The generators are run every 30 to 40 days and twice a year a 2Mw load is put on each to test their ability to operate at full capacity.

2 - 8,000 Gallon Fuel Storage
The facility has two (2) 8,000 gallon fuel tanks. These fuel tanks are serviced by two fuel suppliers with four-hour priority response contracts. Under our current electrical load Herakles Data can fully operate on generator power for over one week!!

6 - Switch and Paralleling Gear Units
The facility has switch gear (N+1) which allows for the safe transfer from utility power to generator power. In the event of a utility power failure, the paralleling gear (N+1) automatically starts, synchronizes, load balances and switches from the transformer yard to all four generators within 13 seconds. During the next 32 seconds the power is stepped-up to the batteries and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). The entire process takes 45 seconds from the time utility power is lost until the generator is fully powering the facility.

1,858 Battery Packs
The facility has 1,858 gel batteries (N+2) that can currently operate the entire facility for 20 minutes. All power goes through the batteries prior to distribution to the customer space.

9 - UPS and 33 - PDU
The facility has nine (9) UPS units (N+2) and thirty-three (33) Power Distribution Units (PDUs) (N+1). The PDUs are all connected to two (2) separate UPS units and have Automatic Transfer Switches.

Totally Diverse Routed Networking

Two Fiber Vaults
The facility has two fiber vaults located off of different streets on opposite sides of our facility. Each of our eleven network carriers is located in each vault and each vault is served by a different TELCO central office.

Dual SONET Rings
Dual, self-healing SONET rings deliver the fiber connection through two underground entrance points and into the facility. The networking is dual routed all the way to the customer installation.

11 - Fiber Carriers
Herakles Data offers the choice of eleven network providers that each provides fiber connections. Herakles Data is and always has been a Carrier Neutral Facility. We currently offer AT&T, Broadwing, Cogent, Integra, MCI, On Fiber, Qwest, SBC, SureWest, UUNet and XO.

Redundant Environmental Conditioning

6 - 500 Ton Water Cooled Chiller Units
The facility is cooled with a closed loop chiller system that utilizes 6 – 500 ton water cooled chiller units (currently 2N). We rotate the units utilizing two different units each month. With our 24' ceilings we cool the first 10' with a chilled water system and allow the heat to rise, thereby creating a heat reservoir. The heat reservoir is conditioned by rooftop air conditioners and air handling units that cool the air before it is returned through the CRAC units to the raised floor plenum.

59 - Computer Room Air Conditioner (CRAC) Units
The Data Center has 59 down flow 30 ton CRAC units to cool our 52, 500 square foot, two raised floor co-location areas. 13 of the CRAC units are for redundancy at full design load.

Physical and Electronic Security

Silicon Valley Security Team
Herakles Data employees the 24x7x365 professional security services of Silicon Valley Security Services to prevent unauthorized access to our facility. They constantly monitor our electronic security system (see below), walk the interior and exterior of our facility, create picture badges for newly authorized people, check authorized individuals into the facility, escort authorized persons to their space and unlock the space for access.

72 - PELCO Surveillance Cameras
Herakles Data uses 72 PELCO fixed or pan and tilt cameras to monitor the interior and exterior access points to the building. Multiple monitors display all the cameras at the front guard desk and in the Network Operations Center.

CCURE Security System
The CCURE Security System is utilized by Herakles Data to track the whereabouts of individuals, monitor the alarms, motion detectors, badge readers, pin pads and biometric devices. This sophisticated security system provides the ultimate in detecting unauthorized access, intrusions and tracking the whereabouts of all individuals. We know where you are, where you have been and when you were there.

Armor-Plated Riot Glass
The glass near the entrance to the facility is all armor-plated riot glass. It would take an individual with a sledge hammer over 35 minutes to penetrate. The other glass in the facility has a drywall, a steel-mesh security screen and a second drywall immediately inside it.

Data Center Safety Systems

Earthquake Stabilization
The Data Center is located in seismic-neutral Sacramento, California. There have been no recorded earthquakes and there are no known active faults in the Sacramento area. None the less Herakles Data has been retrofitted with a steel beam "super-support" system, able to withstand a Bay Area Zone 4 sized earthquake.

Fire Detection and Suppression Systems The Very Early Smoke Detection System (VESDA) is fully deployed at the Data Center. VESDA samples the air at the CRAC return units, under the raised floor and can detect particulates at 5 parts per million. It detects well in advance of an actual fire and will send alarms to our NOC and an outside third party monitor pinpointing the location of the problem. Herakles Data has a state of the art Fire Suppression System. Their double interlock, pre-action, dry pipe fire suppression system uses water from above and below the raised floor to extinguish fire in 10' by 10' grids. The dry pipe system (no water leaks) vacates the air from the pipe and a second valve fills the pipe with water. By using 10' by 10' grid areas the fire can be put out without causing damage to other customers systems.

Data Center Operations

Command Center
The Herakles Data Command Center is the manned, 24x7x365, heart of our colocation facility. From the Command Center certified engineers and technicians monitor and operate the building and entire infrastructure, report problems to customers, and help our customers resolve those problems. The Herakles staff has access to the automated building management systems, two network management systems, the leak detection system, the fire detection and suppression systems, the video surveillance system, the CCUR Security System and the customer portal. These highly automated systems enable the Command Center Staff to run Herakles Data with minimal personnel.

Data Center Automation
One of the finest assets of Herakles Data is our Automated Building Management System (ABMS). The ABMS is hardwired to over 18,000 nodes throughout the facility. A rules-based system, the ABMS is programmed to operate every piece of infrastructure within Herakles Data. If a CRAC unit fails, the ABMS starts the appropriate redundant unit. If the temperature reaches a certain threshold, additional CRAC units are activated until the desired temperature range is met. If a generator is not operating properly, the ABMS starts and stabilizes a redundant generator, and switches over the power from the faulty generator, which is then automatically shut down. Using this and other automated systems allows Herakles to efficiently and effectively operate the facility with a small but highly knowledgeable staff.

Data Slices
The diagram below shows all 24 separate resources that form a data slice. About half the resources are physical things, and half are people/business things. ProTech runs in the Application Servers layer (about 1/3 up from the bottom). That layer is the dedicated app server. It runs up to 4 Mongrels devoted to ProTech - no databases, no email sending, nothing else.

Each slice includes access to MySQL or Postgres servers elsewhere in the cluster. These databases are replicated to avoid data loss, and the contents are backed up to Amazon S3. Additionally, acknowledged experts are used to keep our databases efficient and tuned specifically for ProTech.

Each slice also includes access to SMTP email servers, SAN storage, SVN version control (with included off site backups of SVN!), 15 email accounts etc.

All of the layers shown in purple and red are basically things you can touch - actual physical resources that you get with each data slice. The other layers represent things that many customers also want to know about... things like good security, solid financials, respected data center, etc.