 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Voice-Over-Net Major Keary majkeary@netspace.com.au |
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Recently I had the opportunity to visit GlobalCenter's facility in South Melbourne; it is where the Australian Netscape and Yahoo servers are located, along with those of some very large corporations. Quite a few ISPs are located there, as well as users who have taken minimum rack space. Apart from security, connection to the high speed link is a significant attraction.
GlobalCenter is part of the Global Crossing Company, which has in the order of 160,000 km of fibre optic cable. Amongst their assets are five cable-laying ships.
By having such an extensive and meshed network, GlobalCenter clients are able to take full advantage of voice-over-net because their traffic can be confined to a dedicated link, thus avoiding the problem of late and lost packets.
The Melbourne facility is primarily a data centre for commercial services, even though it hosts some significant (and some less significant) non-commercial servers. The building has been set up specifically for the purpose. I have some experience of secure installations and this rates amongst the best. Clients can remotely power-down their servers and restart them, and have 24-hour access (strictly controlled) for maintenance. All equipment is connected to a central control suite where it is monitored in order that problems are detected, and rectified, quickly.
Climate control, fire control systems, and UPS are state of the art. If the battery-power system is stretched too far a generator, which can keep all systems alive for days, can be brought online. Quite an eye-opener.
Reprinted from the May 2000 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
