Between modernity and tradition
Redundant and reliable overall solution for second data center in Vienna
Vienna, on 31. July 2017 – Building a data center from scratch is a major challenge. Doing this in the middle of a residential district in the heart of Vienna is all the more difficult. Nessus GmbH, together with EPS Electric Power Systems GmbH, has already implemented exactly such a project for the second time. Just a few minutes’ walk from its first location in Vienna’s tenth district, Nessus opened another data center in early 2017. Thanks to the excellent cooperation and expertise of all those involved, a state-of-the-art server location could be created in the existing building, which guarantees the best availability and security for the customers of Nessus GmbH.
Nessus and EPS – these two companies have been working together for decades. Originally founded in 1999 as a web hosting company, Nessus GmbH has grown into one of the most important server housing providers in Austria over the past decades. Already during the renovation of its first data center in 2007, EPS was responsible for the implementation of the server room infrastructure. This first joint project was the foundation for the long-standing cooperation between the companies.
In order to be able to continue to meet all requirements with a constantly growing number of customers, the construction of a second data center sooner or later represented a logical step for the management of Nessus. For this reason, the “Rechenzentrum 2” project was launched in 2015. Together with EPS, this project was realized in a very short time. Excellent corporate communication and rapid implementation ensured that the new location could be completed and opened at the beginning of 2017.
Second data center in Vienna
The construction of another data center presented Nessus with some challenges, especially in terms of planning. At the beginning, the main focus was primarily on finding reliable and experienced partners for the implementation of the data center project. Due to the successful cooperation in the construction of the first data center, it was obvious for Nessus to use EPS as an IT and data center infrastructure provider for a second time. Florian Schicker, Managing Director of Nessus GmbH, answers what allowed EPS to stand out from the competition from the very beginning with the words: “I wanted a company that had experience with data centers. In contrast to other suppliers, EPS was able to demonstrate this and brought the necessary expertise to the table, which was necessary for the order.” The high flexibility of the employees also confirmed the entrepreneur’s decision in favor of EPS. “Together with EPS, excellent solutions to problems have always been found and the technicians showed a very high level of commitment throughout the project.” In addition to suitable partners, a suitable location that should be easy to reach for customers also had to be found. Vacant business premises in a building in Vienna’s tenth district proved to be a suitable building basis. However, this presented the companies involved with the next challenge. The premises there had to be completely renovated in order to make the construction of a data center infrastructure possible at all.
State-of-the-art protective measures in the new data center in Vienna
Anyone who enters the newly built data center building today enters an impressive world of server racks and state-of-the-art protective measures. The fact that you are in the middle of a residential district of the city of Vienna and, above all, the effort that went into the renovation of the building is quickly forgotten due to the ultra-modern, almost futuristic-looking furnishings. To ensure a maximum total output of 1.6MW at the new data center site, EPS was used to install several redundant UPS systems, two access gates secured by two-factor authentication with access card and palm vein recognition, a battery system that allows the data center to work independently for 30 minutes, a diesel generator and redundant cable routing to the former business premises. “The data center is designed according to the Tier III standard, in which both components and supply routes are redundant. In addition, it is ISO 27001 certified,” adds Florian Schicker about the construction of the data center.
The implementation of the project also demanded a lot from EPS’s technicians. “A major challenge was to integrate such a data center into the building’s existing infrastructure. Above all, the implementation of the energy supply system was very complex in terms of planning,” says Jürgen Grubmüller, Technical Manager of EPS. “The coordination with the other construction companies involved as well as the coordination with the rest of the pipe routing was also very challenging. However, through precise and forward-looking planning, we were able to overcome these difficulties without incident.”
With the new data center, Nessus GmbH’s customers can now not only guarantee higher availability of server space, but also ensure site redundancy. “It must be emphasized again and again that the two data centers operate completely self-sufficiently. Also when it comes to electricity feed-in. And this makes the servers extremely fail-safe,” explains Alexander Ernst, COO of Nessus GmbH. Managing Director Florian Schicker also refers to the excellent location: “Customers particularly appreciate the proximity between the data centers. This means that they can look after both centres from one location, which of course saves an enormous amount of time.” Peter Reisinger, Sales Manager at EPS, also takes stock of the successful project: “The construction of the data center was one of our largest projects to date and a major challenge. For us, it was extremely important to respond to the customer’s wishes and create an attractive overall solution. We are happy that we were able to implement the project so well and look forward to continuing to work with Nessus.”
