Tier IV data centre
What is a data centre, and what is Walhalla’s like?
A data centre is a building or room designed to house servers, storage and network equipment with the conditions they need to run without interruption: stable power, cooling, connectivity and physical security. Walhalla’s is in Castellón, Spain, and its design is Tier IV certified.
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What are the parts of a data centre?
Every data centre combines four systems:
Power: utility feeds, transformers, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and generators.
Cooling: equipment that removes heat from the halls and keeps temperature and humidity stable.
Communications: carrier rooms, fibre and network equipment that connect the servers to the outside world.
Security: access control, surveillance, and fire detection and suppression systems.
What sets one data centre apart from another is how many of those elements are duplicated, and whether any of them can be maintained or lost without stopping the service.
What does Tier IV mean?
Data centres are classified into four levels, from Tier I to Tier IV, according to their redundancy and maintainability. Tier IV is the highest level: it requires that any component can fail or be maintained without affecting the hosted equipment, with independent distribution systems isolated from one another.
Compare the levels
Walhalla data centre design
- Maintain without stopping
- Tolerate a failure
Simplified diagram of the power distribution to compare the levels.
The design of a facility and its construction are certified separately. Walhalla holds the Tier IV design certification, which attests to the facility’s schematics and topologies.
A Tier IV-design data centre in Spain
The building covers 1,955 m² in the Universitat Jaume I Science and Technology Park. The IT equipment hall measures 500 m², and the facility also has two carrier meet-me rooms.
- 1,955m²Building floor area
- 500m²IT equipment hall
- 20minUPS autonomy at full load
- 19sFor the generators to take over the full load
- 22 ± 3°CHall temperature, with cold aisles
- 1.4Approximate annualised PUE, measured continuously
Power
- Two transformer substations of its own and a connection to the power distribution ring.
- Two independent uninterruptible power supply systems, with 20 minutes of autonomy at full load.
- Two diesel generators that take over the full load in 19 seconds.
- Duplicated distribution to every rack: each feed comes from a different UPS.
Two complete paths to every rack. Simulate a grid outage or a UPS failure. Simplified diagram.
Cooling
Two independent systems: one centralised, with glycol water and chillers, and one distributed direct expansion system with indirect free cooling. The hall is kept at 22 °C ± 3 °C with cold-aisle containment, no raised floor and no water consumption.
Two independent systems for the same hall.
- No raised floor
- No water consumption
Communications
A carrier-neutral facility, with two carrier rooms and two physically separate communications rooms, its own autonomous system (AS30937) and dual fibre over different routes to every rack.
Two physically separate routes from the carriers to every rack.
Security
- Protected perimeter and an intrusion detection system connected to an alarm receiving centre.
- Two-factor access control (card and biometrics for Walhalla staff), with every entry logged.
- Indoor and outdoor CCTV, 24/7 on-site security and an in-house security operations centre (SOC).
- VESDA aspirating smoke detection and water mist fire suppression.
Layers of protection from the outside to the hall.
Efficiency
An energy management system certified to ISO 50001, signatory to the European Code of Conduct for Data Centres and an annualised PUE of around 1.4, measured continuously.
PUE compares the facility’s total energy with the energy consumed by the IT equipment.
- ISO 50001
- European Code of Conduct for Data Centres
- Continuous measurement
A data centre in Spain, near Valencia
The data centre is in Castellón, in the Valencian Community, less than 80 km from Valencia and connected by motorway, by high-speed rail to Madrid and by direct train to Barcelona. For companies in Valencia and along the Mediterranean corridor it is a nearby option; for those in Madrid or Barcelona, a secondary site geographically separate from their primary data centre.
Continuity and operations
Walhalla maintains a continuity plan covering failures of power supply, cooling and connectivity, fire and security incidents, and tests it every four months. Operations are run by an in-house 24/7 ServiceDesk with automatic escalation across four levels.
Continuity plan
Scenarios covered:
- Power supply
- Cooling
- Connectivity
- Fire
- Security incidents
A year of testsEvery 4 months
In-house ServiceDesk
- 1Level 1
- 2Level 2
- 3Level 3
- 4Level 4
Services delivered from the data centre
- Walhalla PrimeCloud servers with tailored resources.SLA availability99.500%
- Cloud BackupBackup and cyber protection with Acronis.SLA availability99.000%
- VMware CloudManaged VMware capacity.SLA availability99.990%
- ColocationHost your servers in the facility.SLA availability99.995%
- Walhalla S3S3-compatible object storage.SLA availability99.000%
Frequently asked questions
What is a data centre?
A facility that houses the servers of one or more organisations with guaranteed power, cooling, connectivity and security. In Spain it is also known as a CPD (centro de procesamiento de datos).
What is the difference between Tier III and Tier IV?
A Tier III data centre allows any component to be maintained without stopping the service. A Tier IV data centre also tolerates the failure of any component without affecting the hosted equipment.
What does PUE mean?
Power Usage Effectiveness: the ratio between the total energy the facility consumes and the energy consumed by the IT equipment. The closer to 1, the more efficient the installation.
Can the data centre be visited?
Yes. A visit is usually the first step in a colocation project and is arranged with the sales team.
Would you like to see the facility?
Tell us your name, company and phone number, a short description of the project and the service you are interested in, and we will arrange the visit.
