One of world's largest data centres certified to ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001

by Garry Lambert*

NGD Europe, one of the word's largest data centres, located near Newport, South Wales, United Kingdom (UK), was recently opened following completion of a GBP 200 million project to convert and upgrade the 750 000 sq ft former Hynix semiconductor plant into a state-of-the-art, ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001-certified, Tier 3 mega data centre.

According to NGD Europe’s CEO, Nick Razey: “All aspects of the design, specification, build and future operational capability of the data centre facility has ISO 14001 as its core philosophy.”

In addition, in view of the high security nature of its business, the company has just implemented ISO/IEC 27001:2005, Information technology — Security techniques — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Among many features at the new centre, NGD Europe has its own on-site power sub-station connection capable of sustaining a city the size of Bristol, a wide range of dark fibre carrier interconnects to enable high speed low latency connectivity, triple-skinned walls, bomb proof glass, prison grade perimeter fencing, infra-red detection, biometric recognition and ex-special forces security guards.

  Information security starts at the front gate of NGD’s new ISO 14001 and ISO 27001-certified data centre near Newport, South Wales, United Kingdom. (Photo: NGD)

Next Generation Data Ltd., owner and operator of the new data centre, has already concluded contracts worth over GBP 20 million with British Telecoms and Logica, which began moving its extensive data centre information technology (IT) operations into the high security NGD Europe facility earlier this year.

The site is designed to offer UK and overseas organizations, with older data centre sites that may have become too small or constrained by lack of power, the opportunity to move to Wales and save money by consolidating all their operations under NGD Europe's vast roof.

Wales — an excellent business environment

“We are very pleased to have successfully transformed this impressive but unused local landmark building into a truly world-class data centre, and sincerely thank the Welsh government and all our suppliers and contractors for helping us get the project off the ground and up and running on time,” said Simon Taylor, Chairman and Co-founder of Next Generation Data. “We believe our success here will send a strong message to UK and international organizations signaling Wales as an excellent environment for business relocation."

The former Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Science, Innovation and Skills, Lesley Griffiths, said the major, high profile investment by NGD represented very good news for Wales and the local economy. “The Digital Economy is one of the priority sectors for research and development in Wales, and for a highly respected company such as Next Generation Data to locate and develop this site here in Newport sends out a strong, clear message.”

ISO 14001 as its core philosophy

ISO Focus + asked Nick Razey, CEO of Next Generation Data, to comment on the importance of ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) implementation in the development of the data centre.

“In terms of environmental management, NGD is instrumental in ensuring that all aspects of the design specification, build and future operational capability of the data centre facility has ISO 14001 as its core philosophy," he said. "The building design philosophy has been based on ensuring optimal thermal performance with effective and efficient use of energy, utilizing data hall waste heat to supply the office environments and motion sensitive PIR (passive infra-red) lighting control. The installed plant and equipment has been carefully chosen based on several key critical factors, which include optimal energy efficiency and low environmental impact i.e., noise.”

As part of its environmental management system procedures, and to ensure that optimal operational efficiencies and performance specifications are maintained, NGD has installed a state-of-the-art energy monitoring system to record all on-site electrical demands and usage for both critical and mechanical infrastructure, including automatic environmental control for the data halls. “The real time data that the system provides ensures that NGD staff are able to monitor and react to any deviations from optimum performance levels,” added Nick Razey.

With so much confidential IT data at stake, not only for NGD, but also for its long-term tenants at the data centre, the security risks of such an operation are unusually high. For that reason, NGD Europe has also implemented the information security management system standard, ISO/IEC 27001.

  Nick Razey, CEO of Next Generation Data. (Photo: NGD)