In 2010 and 2011, Standby was contracted by a one of the leading financial organizations in the Kingdom of Bahrain to design and project manage the construction of their new computer centre. The project included looking at the options available to the client, the capacities, such as cooling, power as well as providing a high security site with disaster recovery options.
We prepared concept diagrams and fit out schematics for the client to consider and approve. Standby clearly defined what the final result would be and how it would look. One of the challenges was that this was a working data centre and all the work had to be carried out whilst the site was manned. Planning was crucial so that there was no interruption to the client’s services.
Not only was Standby responsible for the design of the server room but also the office space for operations personnel, management and the network and development personnel.
Features of the new data centre were:-
Two hour fire rated walls which were air and water tight
High false floor so that there was good cooling to the equipment
N+1 design in the cooling and power systems
Clean, tidy and well organised cabling and power cable systems are all supported by trays and clear of any possible interruption. There are multiple paths to the various cabinets plus high speed fibre and data cabling.
Good access security to the site and server room.
Fire detection and suppression systems.
The final result as a data centre that Standby has heard referred to as “the best in Bahrain” by international audit companies. In addition; this financial organization has successfully passed the ISO27001 audit certification process based on the scope of Electronic Information and Information Processing facilities at the Data Centre and Network Operation Centre for Data Storage, Application Processing, Archiving and IT Support.
"Standby is very proud of the project and final result" says Sam Mulholland the M.D. of Standby, "however we must acknowledge that this was a team effort. We had a client who was committed to the job and knew the standards they required and supported our recommendations. We also had an excellent contractor Almoayyed Trading and Contracting, they have shown that they can fit out server rooms to the highest of standards".
Saeed Nawar, IT Department Head of KFH says "I am very pleased with the final result and I found the team from Standby very good to work with. They were knowledgeable, listening to our ideas and worked well with the contractors. They were always available to us and were very focused on providing a Server Room that met our requirements".
