DPC of CROC Compressor

2019: Uptime Institute recertification

On May 22, 2019 the Croc company reported that its DPC Compressor underwent Uptime Institute recertification, having confirmed the Tier III — Gold Certification of Operational Sustainability level. It is the highest rate of fault tolerance and reliability which offers the Russian market of commercial DPCs. Placement of IT infrastructure in data center of such category provides to the companies business continuity and excludes risk of idle times of the IT equipment.

For May, 2019 only two Russian commercial data centers have certificates of such level. He confirms that in DPC all processes of operation are effectively built, regulations of service correspond to world practices, and the command professionally fulfills requests of clients.

Regular certificates on operation are appropriated based on audit and are divided into three types: Gold, Silver and Bronze. The DPC Compressor successfully passed all tests and received the Gold level which requires repeated check only in three years. Other levels require conducting more frequent checks — times in two years and time a year respectively.

The full range of certificates of Uptime Institute testifies to high operational stability and also smooth operation of an object. The data center has category Tier III that corresponds to the expected level of trouble-free operation of 99.982% — 95 minutes of idle time a year. At this DPC Compressor works without uniform day of idle time from the moment of opening in 2011. Besides, the data center of such level does not require termination of work of the equipment for replacement of "iron" and service.

Based on data center the wide stack of services in lease of computing infrastructure and its service support is provided to customers of CROC. Also based on Compressor the set of internal projects of the company, for example, a cloud platform of own development works.

DPCs Compressor and a cloud of CROC have certificates on compliance of PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) — to the standard of the industry of payment cards which is comprehensively regulating questions of information security of electronic financial transactions. Thanks to it customers of CROC from among financial institutions, online retail, providers of the payment services and other companies accepting bank card payments from clients via the websites get access to the infrastructure prepared according to requirements of the standard.

The data center Compressor is focused on the companies which need to provide business continuity and to exclude risk of equipment downtimes. It is especially relevant for banking sector and retail where the stop of IT and dependent transactions is wrapped in financial and reputation losses. For May, 2019 in data center placed the these such companies as Nordea Bank, Inteza Bank, service of travel "Туту.ру", Avon, Castorama, KDL.

Alexey Solodovnikov commented on recertification:

the Companies which idle times of IT systems can lead to essential losses need to be placed in DPC with the highest level of fault tolerance and reliability. It is provided by commercial data centers with certification of the Tier III Operational Sustainability — Gold level. The DPC Compressor underwent Uptime Institute testing, having proved capability without accident to function in the long term.

Pavel Goryunov noted:

The received certificate in addition confirms high reliability and fault tolerance of DPC Compressor. Our customers can be sure that they at any time will get access to necessary IT services. The DPC of CROC acts as the platform for complex projects on maintenance and upgrade of IT infrastructure and also on demand provides services of a cloud platform and the managed services for continuous work of business of clients" — noted. Pavel Goryunov, technical director of network of data centers of CROC IT company

2018

Work without idle times

On October 8, 2018 the CROC company reported that the DPC of network of data centers of CROC works without stopping since launch in operation in the fall of 2011, ensuring stable functioning of the computing equipment of customers and high availability of corporate IT systems. For October, 2018 nearly 300 Russian and international companies ensure continuous functioning of the business, placing IT infrastructure in data centers and a cloud of CROC.

According to the company, banks, retail chain stores, transport and logistic the companies, digital-services use data centers also a cloud platform of CROC for placement of applications on support of online sales, the automated banking systems, logistics systems, ERP- and CRM- applications platforms on payment processing and other important components of digital infrastructure.

Smooth operation of DPC is ensured according to practicians of the market on fault tolerance and operation of data centers. At a stage of construction of DPC Compressor it was projected according to the Uptime Institute standards and corresponds to the Tier III level on certification of Certification of Design Documents. Further an object underwent audit on compliance of Tier Certification of Constructed Facility and Operational Sustainability. It means that the project completely corresponds to really constructed object and is focused on the process approach.

In seven years of smooth operation of DPC the universal standard of placement of the equipment in data centers of CROC and SLA is developed. Stable operation of computer systems and optimal cooling of racks is supported using an automated system of precision monitoring of a microclimate of own development on the basis of technologies of Internet of Things (IoT, Internet of Things). These solutions are developed by team of experts of CROC and implemented in data centers in 2018.

Within increase in energy efficiency in DPC Compressor the special solution on differentiation of air flows hot and cold corridors is deployed. It allows data center to function in more economy mode and to provide uniform cooling in machine halls. Providing optimal load of the engineering systems reduces electricity consumption and helps to manage resources of the engineering systems more flexibly. Such approach allows to save the guaranteed parameters of temperature and humidity in server premises of DPC.

Based on infrastructure of data center Compressor the wide portfolio of services for outsourcing of computing infrastructure is provided to customers. They include placement in DPC or use of resources of a cloud platform of CROC, lease of the selected infrastructure and creation of the virtual isolated environments (private clouds), cloud backup (BaaS, Back Up as a Service) and ensuring disaster tolerance (DRaaS, Disaster Recovery as a Service which are offered also on model of the managed services (managed services).

In 2017 Compressor and a cloud of CROC were certified by DPC on compliance of PCI DSS — to the standard of the industry of payment cards which is comprehensively regulating questions of information security of electronic financial transactions. Thanks to it customers of CROC from among financial institutions, online retail, providers of the payment services and other companies accepting bank card payments from clients via the websites get access to the infrastructure prepared according to requirements of the standard.

Certification in accordance with GOST P ISO 9001-2015, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 20000:2011

On July 24, 2018 the Croc company announced passing of recertification of the Management system by the data centers for IT services according to GOST P ISO standards 9001-2015, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 20000:2011.

During audit compliance to standards of services outsourcing DPC, cloud and the managed services provided based on network of data centers Croc, including due service quality of corporate customers, processes of operation of engineering and computing systems, feedback according to service addresses was confirmed.

Auditors noted the high level of technology innovations in data centers Croc among which — the chat-bot for hands-off processing of requests of customers, of the solution for control and management of a microclimate in machine halls, optimization of conventional service processes. According to representatives of the company, these solutions help to optimize operation modes of life support systems of DPC and give the chance to place servers and DWH without strict requirements to heat release of the equipment with more exact observance of SLA (Service Level Agreement). Ensuring optimal temperature and humidity in data centers allow to reduce electricity consumption, promotes growth of energy efficiency and more flexible management by resources of the engineering systems.

Recertification of DPC is a part of our strategy for maintenance of quality of services at the high level according to the advanced practicians of the industry. In plans — reduction of time of working off of service requests, automation of customer interaction and increase in satisfaction of customers — Pavel Goryunov, the technical director of network of data centers of Croc company reported.

Output to the market of service for online control of climatic parameters of DPC

The Croc company summed up on July 19, 2018 the results of year of commercial operation of service for control of climatic parameters of DPC online in data center Compressor and announced its output to the market.

The service, the developed Croc based on industrial IoT, controls climatic parameters in DPCs and prevents overheating of the expensive computing equipment placed in them. Besides, service allows to reduce consumption of electricity, thereby helping to keep the cost of outsourcing services of DPC from increase.

Using service distribution of heat fluxes, arrangement of cold and hot corridors, the thermal card of an object in general are modelled and visualized. On the basis of a summary picture it is possible to draw conclusions on performance of engineering infrastructure and to look for ways of permanent increase in its energy efficiency.

According to specialists Croc, due to use of service the company increased controllability and reliability of engineering infrastructure of outsourcing DPCs. Customers of services of data centers obtain on demand information on the actual parameter values of the environment around the equipment and their compliance to SLA (Service level agreement, to the agreement on the service layer). And the service of operation of data center uses the convenient tool for tracking of operation parameters of the engineering systems. Besides, according to the estimates of the company, for a year of operation it was succeeded to save about 5% of costs for the electric power that actually blocked growth of rates for electricity in 2017.

In DPC Compressor the developed service eliminates risk of change of the parameters of a microclimate connected with specifics of activity of outsourcing DPC. Its infrastructure is dynamic — the equipment is updated, in process of appearance of customers the isolated premises are created and the arrangement of racks is adjusted. The solution Croc controls that these movements did not influence a microclimate of DPC that its climatic parameters remained in the borders promoting the maximum service life of the equipment. Data source is the hardware-software solution including the wireless sensors installed in the server premises and the analytical center placed in a cloud Croc was told in the company.

System sensors fix each 30 seconds indicators of temperature and humidity. These indicators online come to the application developed Croc. At identification of potentially dangerous trends the application reports about it to a duty shift of maintenance engineers of DPC who at once make necessary corrections to operation of the engineering and computing equipment.

The service helps us to estimate in more detail a condition of a microclimate of data center and to approach proactively any changes in DPC. We were convinced of it in the very first days after the beginning of operation. Thanks to the developed solution quickly revealed non-optimal zones in one of premises which corrected by additional physical differentiation of hot and cold corridors. As a result of it provided temperature maintenance strictly in the set range — Pavel Goryunov, the technical director of network of data centers Croc reported.

A system has low power consumption thanks to what not less than two years without replacement of power sources can work independently. According to a statement Croc, radio frequency range of a system guarantees signal transmission even through concrete walls. A system can be provided to other companies operating own DPCs as the managed service.

2017: Services of DPC

For February, 2017 colocation (placement of the equipment), and additional services – outsourcing of computing infrastructure are available to customers to new IT systems, services in business continuity, lease of the computing equipment (HaaS, HardWare as a Service), backup (BaaS, Backup as a Service), reserve DPC as service as classical services of DPC, first of all (DRaaS, Disaster Recovery as a Service). Services significantly simplify management of IT infrastructure and guarantee availability of corporate systems, preventing possible risks of failures.

For complex business challenges on resources of outsourcing data center Compressor infrastructure for creation of private and hybrid clouds is unrolled. In the conditions of increase in demand for Big Data technologies, a business intelligence, Internet of Things such environment will allow to process quickly data bulks and to increase business performance.

2016: Certification of ISO/IEC 20000:2011

CROC expanded a framework of annual audit of the Management system for IT services, having certified the data center platform Compressor 2000 sq.m. in size. As a result audit showed that all services of network of data centers of CROC are provided to customers at the level of the international standards of quality. Also services of the service center of the company and work of technical support of CROC which both employees, and customers use were certified

Within certification the auditor checked observance in CROC of policy and Management systems for IT services and its main business processes are more whole: change managements, management of relationship with consumers and contractors, risk management, management of continuity and availability of IT services. The certificate from the auditor of BSI will work within two years, till August, 2018.

2015: Certificate of Uptime Institute of the Tier III level

On October 20, 2015 the data center of CROC Compressor received the third, final certificate of Uptime Institute of the Tier III — Gold Certification of Operational Sustainability level. The document issued for a period of 3 years confirms high operational stability and reliability of work of data center thanks to competently built operation processes. According to Uptime Institute, specified on the website of the organization, in the world only ten objects have such certificate. At the moment the DPC of CROC works without uniform idle time from the moment of its opening — more than 1300 days. The full range of certificates of Uptime Institute demonstrates that at all stages of lifecycle of data center Compressor — from design before daily long-term operation — CROC follows the commonly accepted world practices and cares for smooth operation of an object.

Even the DPC constructed in due form can be insufficiently reliable because of unqualified operation, ignorance by engineers of regulations of service. Therefore Uptime Institute enters the concept Operational Sustainability ("operational stability") considering the general principles of the organization of work of a command on operation of data center: determination of load of personnel, relevance of regulations, determination of areas of responsibility in case of accidents and strict following to instructions.

Certification of Uptime Institute Tier III takes place in three stages. The first certificate — Tier Certification of Design Documents — CROC received in 2011, having become the pioneer among the Russian system integrators. The document certifies that the project of DPC Compressor conforms to the Uptime Institute Tier III standard. The following certificate — Tier Certification of Constructed Facility — CROC received two years later, also the first in the market. The document guarantees compliance of the constructed physical entity to the initial plan and also demonstrates that the DPC will function uninterruptedly at single hardware failures and carrying out any scheduled works. Still a year later the command of CROC began to prepare for certification of Tier Certification of Operational Sustainability to confirm qualification of personnel, practical knowledge of procedures of check of the equipment and operation, relevance of instructions. The issued conclusion of Uptime Institute of the Gold level works within three years. Throughout this time the certificate is some kind of "quality label" speaking about steadily qualified service of DPC, fast elimination of possible problems, their pro-active solution for the purpose of prevention of accidents.

2014: Two DPCs of CROC passed to InfiniBand technologies

The virtual data center of CROC is constructed based on data centers Compressor and "Volochayevskaya-1". Earlier network infrastructures of platforms differed: "Volochayevskaya-1" it was constructed on the basis of Ethernet technology, with capacity of internal communication channels of 10 Gbit/sec., and Compressor - on InfiniBand FDR from Mellanox company (56 GB/sec.). With transition of both platforms to InfiniBand CROC became the owner of two DPCs with identical infrastructures that significantly simplified service of the used equipment. Changes opened new opportunities and for customers of CROC: now they can build disaster-proof solutions with an uncompromising performance as the main, and reserve data center.

"This project allowed us to increase network transmission capacity five times, to reduce by two orders response time of storage systems, or so-called latency of network. As a result of about 70 customers renting about 500 virtual machines in the cloud platform on Volochayevkoy-1 received much more productive services. At the same time transition was performed without interruption of work of "cloud", online, that it is quite possible to compare to repair of the engine on the run", - Zayedinov Ruslan, the deputy CEO, the head of DPC and cloud computing of CROC company comments.

"The solutions InfiniBand of Mellanox increase reliability and network transmission capacity, increase the speed of a response of applications. The network switches and Mellanox adapters used in the project give the chance to integrate Ethernet and InfiniBand in one general network segment. Therefore transition from one technology to another was rather transparent, and did not demand a stop of the cloud services rented by customers of CROC", - Ziskind Leonid, the chief representative of Mellanox in Russia and the CIS says.

2013: The Compressor is certified by DPC of CROC on Tier III Facility

"In recent years the companies began to think of business continuity seriously. This question is especially relevant for those industries where core business substantially depends on information technologies – where they promote rapid growth: finance, retail, transport companies, communication, on-line business. Work, despite any emergencies, is an already not just reputation call, it is an opportunity to receive clients of less reliable competitors. Only the data center of high reliability can provide such requirements. Now we not the just system integrator providing to the customers very big range of services and solutions. We invested all the services and solutions with the integral participation of DPC with a reliable shell and with pleasure we recognize that anybody in Russia does not have it any more", – Zayedinov Ruslan, the deputy CEO of CROC company comments.

The fact of certification of data center on compliance to level of fault tolerance of TIER III is confirmed by reservation of all engineering systems and a possibility of their service (including adding and removal of the failed equipment) without stopping works of data center. The indicator of availability of DPC on TIER III is estimated at the level of 99.982%. It means that total unplanned idle time of systems cannot exceed on average 1 hour and 35 minutes a year.

During tests of data center Compressor in the conditions of load of DPC for 100% of design capacity components of all its systems – cold supply, conditioning, power supply and so forth were consistently disconnected. At this time specialists of Uptime Institute company controlled all parameters of data center from the point of view of the end user. For example: whether temperature in the machine hall increases whether power supply parameters worsen. Besides, it was important to show a maturity of operational procedures which existence each point of the test program meant. Their accomplishment is available only to the prepared and "trained" service of operation.

Besides, the level of fault tolerance of 99.982% means autonomy of work of data center. The autonomous system of power supply should be designed and constructed as primary source of power supply expected work in mode 24х7. Three days during which took tests the data center Compressor worked in a standalone mode on diesel generator sets. During this time the fuel storage was twice refueled – about 30 tons of fuel were in total spent.

"The data center of CROC company successfully proved to be in tests, having confirmed high reliability and autonomy within certification on TIER III. Existence of this certificate puts Compressor on one level with the international community of the certified data centers. CROC became the first and unique for today Russian system integrator certifying the DPC on so high level of fault tolerance. Besides, it is the Russia's first object which is completely designed and constructed by the Russian specialists without involvement of foreign consultants", – Solodovnikov Alexey, the managing director of Uptime Institute Russia says.

2011

Technical certificate of the engineering systems of DPC

As of December, 2011 the data center Compressor is equipped with the most modern engineering systems:

• The power supply system - Power supply of data center completely conforms to the highest requirements of reliability of Tier III Uptime Institute. The total electric power of data center – 8000 kW. Power supply is provided with own distribution transformer substation which equipment has double reservation. As a reserve power source own diesel electric station (DES) is used. DES has reservation of N+1, electric power – 14000 kVA, Power sources are 7 FG Wilson P2000 diesel generator sets. For providing DES with fuel at it is available the 60 cubic meters reservoirs. The electric networks and a distribution equipment of a power distribution system have double reservation of all components. The equipment is assembled in Russia from component parts of production of Schneider Electric company. Feature of a distribution manifold is complete monitoring of parameters of the electric power passing across one and all electric lines.

• The conditioning system - the Conditioning system of data center is designed according to the double-circuit scheme with liquid cooling. As the heat carrier of an external circuit water solution of ethylene glycol is used. In an internal circuit – water. Such scheme allows to exclude freezing of the heat carrier going on pipes outside of the building at negative temperatures and at the same time reduces a zone of use of potentially dangerous substances. The system of precision conditioning is constructed based on conditioners of the industrial Cyber Air 2 ASD1510CW type of production of Stulz company (Germany) with a refrigerating power of 106 kW. Cold and hot air flows are separated. Cold sources in a system during the work during the warm period of year and off-season are production NordVent ASR385RTB chillers, and in winter — draykuler of DBC1500 of production NordVent. The automation system manages joint work of chillers and draykuler.

• The fire extinguishing system - an istema of fire extinguishing provides fire detection, giving of signals on a fire post, management signals with the engineering systems of the building, the warning signals to people, supply of fire extinguishing substance in the protected premises. In technology premises of DPC automatic installations of gas fire extinguishing using fire extinguishing means – an inergen are applied. Estimated time of a gas supply makes no more than 10 seconds.

• The structured cable network - For creation of the structured cable network the SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED-XL components are used. Speed of data streams is not less than 1 Gbps. All cable and cross equipment meets requirements of international standards.

• The systems of protection and Video surveillance - In DPC the single system of security television which management is conducted with the central post of protection of the building is used. The single system of control and access control provides the Bureau of Admissions functions, video verification undergoing through tourniquets, graphic displays of a system status (existence of alarms, emergency situations, operational information with an output of floor-by-floor plans), creation of archive of all facts of site survey. Doors of all premises of DPC are equipped with electronic locks and card readers. In the building the single system of security and disturbing alarm controlling external perimeter of data center, all technology premises, covers of instrument cabinets, low-current niches is organized.

• Monitoring systems - the Automated system of operating dispatching control and control of the engineering equipment and systems allows to conduct the centralized observation of a status of all life-supporting systems. A system has the expanded architecture that allows to connect if necessary add-on modules and systems.

Creation of DPC

The CROC company constructed new commercial data center Compressor, the third own commercial DPC. Before the DPCs "Volochayevskaya-1" and "Volochayevskaya-2" located on the street of the same name in Moscow were already open for CROC. They are put into operation in 2009 and 2011 respectively, the areas of machine halls are 300 and 700 sq.m, and power supply power – 1 MW and 2 MVT.

This DPC of CROC many times exceeds predecessors by the size and power. It is on the protected area of the Kompressor plant in 10 minutes drive from the downtown. The total area of data center – 5 thousand sq.m, the area of four machine halls – 2 thousand sq.m. (on 800 racks).

One more difference of Compressor this existence of the certificate on compliance to the class Tier III confirming coefficient of fault tolerance of 99.982%. According to in CROC, it is the first project of the Russian system integrator to which such high level is appropriated.

From the DPCs located in the territory of Russia the similar class has DPC of MegaFon in the Volga region. CROC does not open investment into construction of Compressor. For comparison, construction of new DPC (also the Tier III level) in St. Petersburg cost the Dutch company Linxdatacenter more than 20 million euros (the area of data center is 7.5 thousand sq.m).

All engineering systems of new DPC (more than 20 different systems) are designed taking into account providing such high level of fault tolerance: they have shunt circuits on a case of failure of one of elements. In particular, for power supply of DPC two independent power centers on 8 MW are used. Communication channels provide several operators.

For December, 2011 in data center Compressor two machine halls are open: completely new platform will open in the spring of 2012. CROC says that the first customers already reserved capacities in new DPC, but them do not reveal names yet.

As told TAdviser ' Ruslan Zayedinov', the deputy CEO of CROC, in the Russian market of commercial DPCs exists deficit of the offer long ago. "The areas in our first two commercial data centers were bought up even before the end of construction. The similar situation developed with data center Compressor", - he shared.

According to Ruslan Zayedinov, further demand for data centers with high degree of fault tolerance will only grow. "And it is obvious that the market is not ready to react adequately to these requests yet, gain of deficit is inevitable", - the top manager also added.

He also told about services which are rendered based on Compressor. This placement of the equipment on own or leased buildings, including installation of non-standard hi-end of servers and storage systems. Also based on DPC communication channels to points of exchange of telecommunication traffic and lease complete a complex of IT systems are provided.

If at the disposal of the company there is already IT infrastructure which can form base for growth, then at its placement in data center it is possible to issue service of a leaseback: i.e. the redemption of the equipment of the customer and delivery to his customer in the form of service. Besides, CROC provides service – "reserve DPC as service" (DisasterRecovery-as-a-Service, DRaaS). All IT systems placed in data center Compressor can be delivered on service in customer service of integrator.