I’ve been fielding several questions about the data centre used to house the hosting facilities, for those interested, some of the more interesting details follow below.

Currently  there are some upgrades in the works:

The new routing system powered by Cisco gear, enables a migration to 10 gigabits per second of transport capacity! And then to 40 gigabits per second when it becomes available later this year.

As our clients are aware, we just completed the server platform upgrades, where memory capacity and CPU cores on the servers were doubled.

Also, one excellent change that  impacts our clients is that we do not limit bandwidth usage. We chose this route as it became evident that some clients use less bandwidth, some use more. Overall, things level out. As such it no longer made sense to continue the old fashioned hosting styles which included bandwidth limitations.

A key ongoing issue is that the Internet is quickly running out of IPV4 addresses, as such network upgrades are continuing, increasing transport capacity and smoothing the transition to IPv6.

All servers are located in the “Double Density”, Green data center, Ashland, Virginia, USA. The new, modern facility can deliver 15 KW of power per cabinet, a big jump from the norm for other area facilities, of 6 KW per cabinet. This high-end facility supports mission critical Internet operations. Its professional grade data distribution, enables fast and scalable connections to any of the major carriers.

One issue that stands out is that the Data Centre in Green!

In providing Web Hosting, we do run web, email, etc. servers, and they generate a massive amount of carbon emissions. Understandably this is not best for our environment.

It was important to work with partners that actively reduce carbon emissions and be more eco friendly. We’re happy  about the following results:

As you’re aware we already upgraded our servers which are more energy efficient and thus are more eco friendly.
Renewable and recyclable products are being used.
The data centre architects where required to be LEED certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), and only use LEED products.
However more was needed…

The energy supplier was brought into the mix and a request was tabled by the data centre, that all supplied energy be from renewable sources only (Solar, Wind, etc.). There is a solar and wind farm located near the data centre. As such, the servers are now 100% powered by renewable Wind and Solar energy!

What does this mean?

The removal of 375 cars from the road each year or
Powering 231 homes with clean and reliable energy for a year or
Saving around 3,571 barrels of oil or
Protecting 229 acres of forest per year.

Want your site on a Green, Carbon Neutral server?

You can review and select your hosting account – And can even request a specific custom setup, to meet your needs

Finally, all clients who host their sites on our servers are welcome to place the following code on their own sites:

<a href="http://rogerwheatley.com/web-server-hosting-data-centre/"><img style="border: 0pt none;" title="This is a Green, Carbon Neutral Website. Please click to learn more" src="http://rogerwheatley.com/img/carbon-neutral.png" alt="This is a Green, Carbon Neutral Website. Please click to learn more" width="140" height="50" /></a>

Tagged with: 10gbps • 40gbps • bandwidth • carbon neutral • data centre • green • hosting • ipv6 • renewable • server • solar • web