Communication room delivered for City firm in four weeks

AmTrust International is the global brand of AmTrust Financial Services Inc.’s (AFSI) operations outside North America, providing bespoke insurance solutions for businesses of all types.

Established in 1998, AFSI has over 8000 employees and operates in over 25 countries worldwide.

The company’s London office was opened at St Mary’s Axe in the heart of the financial district.

Requirement

Following a review of its supply chain, AmTrust turned to 2bm to design and build a brand-new server room in just four weeks.

The fit-out would take place during a time of wider extensive refurbishment and extension to their main building located within the City of London.

AmTrust were looking for the installation of a modern and efficient communications room in the basement of their city office block that allowed for future expansion.

New server and networking racks needed to be installed immediately and purpose-built elevation of equipment was required to provide protection in the event of flooding. Dedicated overhead network cable runways were required between the racks with protected entry points within the room.

Resilient power feeds were specified with A and B paths, supported by N+N high efficiency UPS systems.

The server room also required dedicated cooling, designed and installed to provide N+1 resilience against the maximum permissible IT load. An innovative solution for the operation of the split DX cooling units was to force the cold air directly to the inlet side of the racks, creating a completely separate path for the returning hot air.

A 30-minute fire rated enclosure was needed for the entire IT suite.

The client requested low-energy LED and general lighting within the communications room and neighbouring storage area. The storage area also required a custom built IT work station.

Challenge

Some of the solutions included:

• New network racks with a maximum load of 6 kW per rack;
• Mechanical and electrical services complete with power protection systems, all at a minimum N+1 resilience to ensure fault tolerance;
• Both A & B power supplies to the IT equipment were UPS protected from discrete UPS feeds, providing a true N+N resilience;
• Cooling to the room was provided by ceiling mounted units that were positioned to maximise the efficiency of the aisle containment system, whilst ensuring adherence to the best practices listed in the EUCOC;
• The selected cooling units boast class leading efficiency through smart inverter technology;
• A fire-line partition walling system was installed creating an insulated 30-minute fire rated five-sided box. In addition a protective roof cover was installed over the data centre to provide leak protection from live over-head services;
• Custom racking was designed, supplied and installed by 2bm.

Result

Installation and completion was in just four weeks – meeting the client’s critical deadline.