Anatomy of a Cyprus data centre

“The downside in Cyprus is that companies don’t belief confirmed applied sciences like ours. They have a superstitious concern of letting an exterior firm handle their data. It doesn’t matter what sector you’re working with; for prime administration it’s almost all the time the identical. They simply don’t perceive the worth, they usually don’t belief it. They have the necessity to see and really feel their very own servers, with the {hardware} proper in their very own workplaces, they should have whole management of all of it. Despite the elevated price.” Michael Ioannou is Chief Information Officer at Bolton Technologies. Ioannou has been within the IT trade for about 15 years.

“I studied pc science after which did my masters in cybersecurity, after which I centered on my profession. After creating Bolton Technologies as an IT Services firm to shoppers in Cyprus, we noticed that data centres had been trending: shoppers had a want for colocation, catastrophe restoration and internet hosting companies. We had been capable of take benefit of our newly constructed enterprise centre constructing, with one ground allotted to a data centre and to supply these cloud companies to shoppers.

“Bolton Technologies additionally provides generic IT companies to shoppers, like ongoing upkeep, and help, IT Implementations, enterprise options and plenty of extra. The addition of the data centre companies which are ongoing for the previous two years has offered us with new income streams and curiosity from shoppers overseas.

The firm provides three classes of companies by way of the data centre. Colocation companies, through which corporations carry their very own servers to the data centre for internet hosting them, internet hosting and Cloud options comparable to Infrastructure as a Service, Webhosting and e mail internet hosting.

“Our data centre infrastructure was constructed with the newest state-of-the-art know-how based mostly with the  Tier III necessities that shoppers require: Networking and energy provide absolutely redundant to make sure fault-tolerant of 99,982% uptime.”

“Building the data centre with the Tier III necessities ensures the uptime of the companies provided to shoppers, that means that the chance of service downtime is extraordinarily lowered. This additionally ensures that the servers are all the time out there to the shopper. “Security is an important precedence. Starting from the constructing’s bodily safety which supplies entry controls and a mantrap to enter the data room – just like the two-door entry you typically see at banks.

Additionally, CCTV is put in to cowl all angles of the constructing and is supplemented by burglar alarms and movement detectors. Inside the data centre, to guarantee safety from any bodily catastrophe, now we have carried out hearth detection gear and extinguishers that don’t hurt the {hardware}, temperature monitoring, water leakage and humidity detectors. We even positioned our data centre on the primary ground to keep away from hazard of floods, and supply under-floor screens that detect any leakage.”

Data centres require huge quantities of electrical energy, they usually have to have the ability to handle all the warmth that’s generated by the servers. Bolton Technologies has its personal options.
“The principal supply of electrical energy is from the Electricity Authority of Cyprus. But now we have redundant sources of energy as effectively. We have two totally different turbines, so in case one fails, the opposite one will work. And every generator supplies sufficient energy for 4 days of operation.”

“What’s extra, all of the connections are duplicated. Should a cable fail, there’s one other to carry out the identical perform. We can keep away from virtually any potential disruption on this approach. And we’re putting in photo voltaic panels to incorporate extra renewable vitality within the combine.”

There can be a particular system to handle warmth.

“We use a   scorching aisle/chilly aisle system. This is a lay-out design for server racks and different computing gear. The objective of a scorching aisle/ chilly aisle configuration is to preserve vitality and decrease cooling prices by managing airflow.

“In its easiest type, scorching aisle/chilly aisle data centre design includes lining up server racks in alternating rows with chilly air intakes dealing with a method and scorching air exhausts dealing with the opposite. The rows composed of rack fronts are known as chilly aisles. Typically, chilly aisles face air conditioner output ducts. The rows the heated exhausts pour into are known as scorching aisles. Typically, scorching aisles face air conditioner return ducts.

“A containment system can be utilized to isolate scorching aisles and chilly aisles from one another and forestall cold and hot air from mixing. Today, we use a plenum that mixes containment with variable fan drives to stop chilly air and scorching air from mixing.”

What about data safety?
“Complementing Bolton Technologies with our cybersecurity firm based mostly in Switzerland, Boltonshield  provides defensive and offensive cybersecurity companies, We are including worth to the data centre to be extra cybersecurity-oriented by way of these companies.

“Through the cybersecurity companies, we provide managed safety companies the place we monitor the entire infrastructure for any malicious occasions with the help of AI, and alert the shoppers for these potential threats or as- sist within the mitigation and response.”

Bolton Technologies doesn’t have the most important data centre in Cyprus, but it surely does host companies for big corporates who search a fastidiously tailored method with added-value cybersecurity comparable to encryption.

“We’re not the largest: Our method is shopper oriented. We are usually not advertising and marketing aggressively. We work solely with some area of interest shoppers, offering tailored companies with value-added companies on cybersecurity.

“There was by no means any intention to create a huge data centre, like Microsoft, the place shoppers simply register on-line and fill out a  type. It’s the non-public method with shoppers that issues for us, discovering the answer that matches shopper wants.  We provide, for instance, encrypted servers. This assures the confidentiality that the shopper requires. When we provide digital machines, we give shoppers encryption keys, in order that nobody, together with us, can entry them. This differentiates us from different data centres in Cyprus.”

By specializing in this particular clientele, Bolton Technologies can be capable of maintain pricing fairly aggressive. This is essential as a result of demand is ramping up.

“I feel now, after Covid, there’s an growing want for data centres, as a result of of the expansion of distant work. There is a want for a centralised location, as a result of folks work- ing from house are unfold out everywhere in the nation, everywhere in the world. Companies having distant workplaces across the globe must have their data centralised. They want so as to add worth, added security measures to regulate the distant staff as effectively.

“The introduction of 5G in Cyprus could make it even simpler for a firm to work with a data centre as an alternative of having all the pieces domestically and preserve a server room. With the assistance of 5G, the connection will likely be even sooner and can really feel such as you’re all proper there on the identical community.”

The monetary profit to the shopper can be appreciable, as Ioannou factors out.

“There are many price advantages for the shopper.  First of all, there aren’t any downtime losses as virtually 100 per cent uptime is assured. Clients all the time have their servers up-to-date, and all of the infrastructure up-to-date, all of it upgraded robotically. And there isn’t a preliminary funding.

Clients pay a month-to-month base subscription or a yearly base subscription. So in that approach, they keep away from any preliminary funding, and there aren’t any upkeep funds, no prices for help for the servers and no extras for his or her enterprise continuity plan. So they might want to additionally implement turbines, redundant energy sources, energy net- works, energy cables, redundant networking. So they should construct an infrastructure behind these servers as a way to correctly host their very own infrastructure.

“And after they’ve made all this funding, inside 4 years it is going to be out of date and wish changing.”

Clients also can select between internet hosting on-line or on the precise servers. But in Cyprus, it’s very tough for companies to make the choice to retailer data externally.

“The downside in Cyprus
is that companies don’t belief confirmed applied sciences like ours. They have a superstitious concern of letting an exterior firm handle their data. It doesn’t matter what sector you’re working with; for prime administration, it’s almost all the time the identical. They simply don’t perceive the worth, they usually don’t belief it. They have the necessity to see and really feel their very own servers, with the {hardware} proper in their very own workplaces, they should have whole management of all of it. Despite the elevated price.”

Nor are many potential shoppers satisfied by all of the added worth that a data cen- tre supplier can provide.

“They typically merely don’t perceive at first, after which they undergo a cyber assault on their servers, or they begin spending a lot on upkeep, and regularly the sense of all of it will get by way of to them – the penny drops,” Ioannou jokes.

“We are affected person, and we work to coach administration. It’s typically with the assistance of the IT division which sees the logic of data centres, in order that administration can take a extra cost-and-value based mostly view. It’s the IT division that understands how servers have to be patched, and the way know-how needs to be changed when it turns into out of date, and why cybersecurity is vital right now. But we assist the IT division to specific the enterprise case as effectively.”

Ioannou has nice religion, regardless of all the pieces, sooner or later improvement of the data centre trade in Cyprus. “As Cyprus turns into a tech hub, there will likely be a higher share of native managers with expertise of data centres or cloud. It’s inevitable. The complete trade is shifting in that route, the necessity for data storage is rising at exponential charges, so quickly  Cyprus will see nice progress on this space,” he concludes.