Reprint the report ‘A Tour in SDS T4 Data Center: Higher-Level Efficiency, Reliability and Security, with No KPI Left Unconsidered ’

Starting from 2003 when SDS first set foot in data center business and then 2008 when the first SDS T4 data center was built, SDS has been dedicating itself into creating products featuring high availability and high reliability and developing a service team featuring high professional competence, and for which, has earned for itself a preferable position among users in banking, futures and third-party payment industries, and, consequently, maintained a very high customer satisfaction level and service contract renewal rate.

In 2018, after project delivery, SDS IDX SH4 Data Center soon started official operation. The IDX SH4 Data Center was designed and built according to Tier 4 Standards and, then, improved and upgraded itself in five key dimensions, i.e. reliability, security, energy use efficiency, AI and neutrality.

Picture 1: A Corner of the VIP Zone in SDS IDX SH4 Data Center

Stable and Reliable: Great Guarantee to Uninterrupted Operation of Client Business Systems

According to international computing room standard ‘ANSI/TIA-942’, the IDCs are classified into four tiers, i.e. T1, T2, T3 and T4, with T4 being the highest level. Compared with T3, the greatest difference of T4 lies in that No-Single-Point-of-Failure (NSPF) design and the highest redundancy are applied to both core systems (power supply, cooling, network systems) and sub-systems to meet the highest SLA requirement. Currently, the IDX SH4 is able to provide users with 99.995% power supply SLA, meaning that the total service interruption time of a year will never exceed 40 minutes.

Mr. Gu Feng, Data Center Manager of SDS, introduced that, throughout the SDS operation history, it’s never happened that both dual power supply lines break down at the same time. In order to ensure our users a 100% service availability, we chose high-end products of top international brands to equip our infrastructure facilities (including power distribution system, UPS, power generator, cooling machines and precision air conditioning) and ensure the high service availability level we promised. Also, a whole-process control system has been installed to achieve a whole-process control over the status of our infrastructural facilities and the operating environment. A smart system is in place to maintain centralized monitoring over operating data and conduct intelligent data analysis in order to improve our failure prevention and response capacity.

Based on years of experience in IT operation, SDS made special efforts in optimizing and strengthening the protection over key points in different systems and has effectively lowered the failure risk of weaker links.

Secured and Rule-Complied: Put Data and Equipment under Effective Protection。

SDS is committed to protecting important customer data and equipments with an internal environment under thorough monitoring;

Picture 2: A Front View of SDS IDX SH4 Data Center

First of all, to ensure building security, a protective fence equipped with an access control system was installed at the east side of the compound to create an independent ‘yard in yard’, namely, a separate access-controlled security zone inside the Zhangjiang Park.

Second, to ensure access security, the security check points are equipped with metal detectors, X-ray machines and fast track gates. When a visitor wants to enter the compound, he/she will have to make an appointment via the access system first and then go through an on-site ID and security check at every entrance. The access system is flexible in setting different access authority and access management modes and enabling security guards to maintain strict control over the areas open for him/her.

In terms of data line security, a full isolation is maintained between the access zones of all telecommunication network operators and the access zones of all customers, and, all public trunk line bridge frames are completely enclosed. Meanwhile, in general, a zero blind-spot HD video monitoring is maintained in each and every zone in a SDS data center. Moreover, additional functions like intelligent recognition, self-help authorization management, have been applied to further enhance the data line security.

Energy-saving and Environmental Friendly: Create Green Data Centers

The coming of green data center is driven not only by state encouraging policies. It is an inevitable result of the development of data center itself. Foreseeing that trend, SDS set up a series of energy consumption and cost control indicators in the very early stage of its data center construction projects. That’s why SDS is able to keep the PUE (Power Use Effectiveness) of all computing rooms at a level as low as 1.5.

As for the architecture, all buildings are fully enclosed in an overall exterior wall that features not only practical functions like heat insulation, water-proof, good safety, but also good appearance.  

In terms of cooling system, a forced-air-cooling water chiller unit is used for the data centers, with a natural cooling plus spray cooling solution adopted to improve cooling efficiency. Mr. Gu Feng said that the natural cooling system could initiate itself at any time when, for example, the outdoor temperature drops below 20 Celsius degree. In a re-circulating process, water at 30 Celsius degree will be cooled to 20 Celsius degree with natural cooling technology, which is much better than compressor-driven cooling technology in energy-saving performance.

As to lighting system, SDS selected the Philip Overall Lighting solution that, with the help of a smart lighting management system, enables the O&M people to keep a centralized control over internal lighting time and luminous intensity. Particularly, an inductive lighting system that can ensure ‘lights on when people come and lights off when people leave’ is used to further reduce energy consumption.

Additional cooling technologies, e.g. Cold Pool Sealing, Forced Floor Ventilation and Hot Aisle Closure, etc, are used for customer host zones to ensure the effective cooling of high power-consuming equipments.

Smart Management: Achieve High Efficiency Operating and Maintenance (O&M)

Driven by the evolution and development of different industries, customers from different background have begun paying greater attention to a better operating, maintenance and service capability of a data center in addition to the quality of its infrastructure and facilities. The establishment of a good data center owes only 30% to its construction level but 70% to its O&M capability. The daily operation and maintenance of a data center, however, depends as much on the support of an intelligent system as on human efforts, to meet enterprise users need for smart business development. Seeing that, SDS made great investment to build its intelligent management capacity.

First of all, the management system itself is modularized to ensure that all sub-systems, including power supply, HVAC and lighting, are supervised, controllable and easy-to-adjust, so that it’d become impossible for a failure in one system to affect the operating of other modules.

The centralized control terminal of the management system is open by design to facilitate its interconnection with ITSM, CRM and CMDB system and the development of O&M processes tailored to meet specific needs, making it much easier for conducting O&M optimization and efficiency and quality improvement.

In addition, SDS provides unified customized admin interface for users to understand the general conditions of the leased zone and the running state of the data center in real time through remote query function.

Stay Neutral: Provide Better Redundancy and Flexibility

Over years, SDS is committed to the self-position of being an industry-leading neutral service provider. Up to now, a fiber loop network connecting all SDS data centers in Shanghai has already been established and directly connected with the backbone networks of leading Chinese telecommunication operators. As a matter of fact, every SDS data center offers users with dual-line access to the Big Three telecom networks. That means that our customers may choose any telecommunication network they want without suffering the trouble of being tied up with any specific telecommunication operator. As a result, they would enjoy larger redundancy and higher flexibility and better meet their needs with tailored solutions.

SDS sticks to a neutral standing when providing Cloud services. Currently, SDS has built a good cooperative relation with all major Cloud service providers in the market, e.g. AWS, Azure, Ali Cloud, etc.

Service First and Customer First

Having service-provision as our core business, SDS holds up to the principle of ‘take customer concerns as our concerns and customer needs our needs’ in our daily customer service. Among others, our service users from banking, insurance, payment and other financial industries hold a very high standard on our service quality.

“What the futures industry expects most from us is Fast Service, for example, a lower than 1 millisecond time delay, and the banking industry, security and stability, the payment clearing industry, 24/7 online trading support. In answer to these needs, we developed a variety of industry-specific solutions and services to achieve a quicker response to customer needs and a timely resolution of customer troubles. In addition, based on our long operating experience, we’d provide customers with effective consultation supports and good recommendations about computing room design and installation.” Said Mr. Gu Feng.

It’s reported that SDS has built a complete service system in accordance with ITIL standards and, subsequently, started offering its customers with 24/7 operating support, to ensure the uninterrupted operating of its customers’ core business operations. Not only that, for customers having greater business scale and service needs, it developed a one-to-one customer manager service, i.e. a baby-sitter-style immediate service covering the entire life-span of an IT project.

In addition to basic services, SDS has developed a range of unique Care Services for customers.

For example, the Remote Hands offers users with the convenience of calling a SDS team to accomplish a task that a user couldn’t do personally on site. The SDS Remote Hands team is ready to help customers handle troubles ranging from things as trivial as accepting a package to things as big as to reboot a server or to relocate a computing room.

For customers who need to send employees to work in computing rooms, SDS has an Office Desk service. For example, a customer team coming from afar could immediately access to a network and start operations in a SDS data center simply by switching on the power with a key-card. The SDS Office Desk has everything a customer may need to run an office, ranging from printer, telephone, drinking water, wireless online access, meeting room, and even medical box, tool box, umbrella, and battery charger. The Office Desk is designed to provide users with a most convenient working environment that is equipped with a complete service system.

As we all know, the financial industry holds extremely high requirements on disaster recovery capacity. The disaster recovery at the highest level should not only cover all IT systems, but also include a standby office operation solution. The BCP disaster recovery desk that SDS offers to industrial users could help them deal with all kinds of disasters and risks with great ease.

“We always put our customers at the foremost place. Often, we turn a customer need into a new product. We see customer needs as a driving force of our progress.” Said Mr Gu Feng, “In future, we will continue sticking to the ‘Customer First’ principle and trying our best to improve our one-stop services.”

In absolute consistency with the quality and technology beliefs that SDS upholds for every of its actions, the IDX SH4 made painstaking efforts to have developed, and is still improving, a complete set of service product to meet the needs of modern financial industry. In Shanghai, a cosmopolitan crowded with world-class financial institutions, it’s more essential than ever to provide the market with high quality, up-to-date, high-end customer oriented telecommunication services and to lead industrial transformation to a higher level in terms of professionalization and brand-building.