Pure vision provides optimum TCO

Please can you provide some background on Ark – from its formation through to the present time?
Ark’s history speaks to an entrepreneurial group of technologists and engineers over a number of years creating a world class data centre offering. At the end of last year a new leadership team arrived following a major recapitalisation of the business. The future is what it is now all about. Taking the best kept secret in the data centre industry - ARK - and exploding it into the market - a robust strategy, real leadership, excellent operations with powerful financial backing.

We are currently located and growing across two campuses (Wiltshire and Hampshire) building modular data centres, known as The Arks. We are actively seeking a new third site. We are gaining momentum, building and selling fast. Truly exciting times at Ark

There are plenty of data centres out there, so what is it that Ark believes differentiates its own facilities from the rest of the market?
We are NOT primarily a real estate company that happens to supply data centres to make the best return we can from some property we acquired. We are a pure data centre company, we exist to build and operate the best in that field. Our data centres are purpose built from ground up and are as a consequence the most efficient in the industry with the lowest total cost of ownership to our clients. Further we are not transactional in the sense of how normal property deals are executed - we understand the role that technology now plays at the heart of our clients businesses and the critical role we have in driving their services. We understand our clients world, their challenges and the outcomes that they seek. We aim to be businesses partners and given our understanding, experience and financial backing, can drive transformational plays for clients.

What’s the thinking behind the two Ark data centre locations?
The two current sites are our starting point; others will follow. The existing sites do however reflect our focus on true resilience - tenure of land, regulatory clearances, diverse power supplies, highly efficient cooling, robust security (operating from BIL3 to BIL6) and financial robustness on campuses enabling agility and constant innovation. Together they provide excellent coverage from London right along the M4 corridor.

And are these brownfield or greenfield developments – and does it matter?
Both are brownfield – the importance of this is the impact on our planet. Developing brownfield versus greenfield allows us to stand up against our sustainability values. These are important to us, should be front and centre for everyone and will certainly become a very real issue for data centres as a fundamental component of the technology industry.

In other words, what do these locations offer to clients?
True resilience, real agility and the lowest TCO in the industry.
They can if they wish enable replication/disaster recovery between the two locations. The campus nature of the sites and our rapid modular build also gives clients space to grow and innovate. Clients can move into a newly built Ark, on the same campus, allowing them to occupy the latest, most efficient offering; this flexibility is a real challenge to the traditional warehouse model. We then redevelop and upgrade the older data centres…and the cycle continues.

There are plenty of factors behind a successful data centre,
please can you tell us a little bit about: a) your key personnel
b) your market knowledge?
The most important thing to ensure is that people feel that they are part of a high performing team; they understand the outcomes Ark requires, its strategy, their role in achieving that success and what they can expect when they get there. Every one of our people has a vital contribution to make. We have real depth across sales/marketing, operations, finance and commercial. People with world class experience gained in some of the worlds largest, market leading companies. That said, what it really boils down to is integrity, that you care and carry the burning passion and drive to make Ark the very best it can be and always put the client first - they are after all why we are here!

In summary my focus is on the team not individuals. That said, we do have market leaders in building and operating data centres. We also have a team with experience that spans a vast number of different business areas and who have driven substantial business transformations. We don’t just sell space, we bring our business transformation expertise to the table and understand the challenges (internal and external) confronting large business. We can also, where appropriate, bring our financial muscle to bear.

However, power and cooling are, perhaps, the biggest single factor to consider when running a data centre. What is Ark’s approach to this ‘hot’ topic?
We are living in times of huge challenge in western economies and a massive global power shift - old to new economies. Technology can be extremely disruptive but equally incredibly enabling. The simple fact is that there is real uncertainty and an ever faster, more complex and demanding environment for businesses. Technology is now at the heart of all of it and data centres the constant to which it all plugs in.
Power is a real issue and data centres carry a real responsibility and can play a very real role in driving change. Our aim is to make our data centres as efficient as possible and because they are purpose built and modular, we have the ability to constantly improve their efficiency. Even on our current offering against say a public sector average PUE of 2.5 (which is generous) we can save government £1.1m per MW per year and 6,000 tons of carbon. By constant improvement and transformative engagement we significantly reduce our clients power usage and carbon footprint.

PUE is often held up as the measure of a data centre’s energy efficiency. How much emphasis do you place on PUE?
There are plenty of ways to measure efficiency. The industry has adopted PUE as an effective benchmark – it is a key component of TCO in a wholesale environment. If you are being charged per kW (and chances are you’re focussed on keeping costs as low as they can be) then demand an accurate picture of where your money is going. If not to your servers, where is it going? How are you measuring any loss? More critically, where in the data centre are you taking those measurements from? And at the centre of this, given the squeeze on budgets and the wider issues of sustainability and power…Is your data centre provider doing absolutely everything in their power to reduce the impact of that loss?

The answer is we place a relative emphasis on PUE, in conjunction with other factors – which is why we measure an annualised PUE. What that means is that we aren’t marketing a figure that was generated on the coldest day of the year with the back doors open.

If so, is there a need for a new, more accurate energy efficiency measure/standard?
It’s something to consider – energy isn’t only electrical. So PUE isn’t as holistic as it could be. TCO is perhaps a more comprehensive measurement.

Sustainability is talked about quite a lot in regard to data centres. What does this mean, and is it a helpful approach?
To most, sustainability means ‘green’ - recycling, carbon emissions, using green energy and so forth. Of course the environmental interests are front and centre and to address, (amongst other initiatives) we have installed photovoltaic cells (solar panels), we are harvesting rain water and we even have a bat cave at Spring Park. (Greater Horseshoe - 70% of the UK’s population lives locally) and a conservation area at Cody Park.

Sourcing locally for contractors, allowing for ‘swing space’ within the campuses (ease of change between data centres to allow for evolution of technology), ensuring a financially sustainable model – is all driven by a desire to sustain both the planet (of course) but also the business and our clients businesses.

In summary, what should clients be looking for when they are seeking to evaluate the energy efficiency and sustainability properties of a data centre?
A client needs to look at the IT electrical load they are consuming, they then need to look at the overall power that is being used to support the continuous provision of systems and services to sustain the IT power.

In today’s standards the best levels of efficiency are achieved when the plant and equipment are being used at their optimum design level; an efficiency level of sub 1.25 should be expected at 50% utilisation of the IT power capacity available.

What this in basic terms means; is that for 1kWh of IT power used 0.25kWh of additional energy is used to produce the environment required to keep the IT operating (cooling, lighting, fire systems, BMS etc.).

A client will also want to look at the built systems and evaluate the extent of redundancy and resilience the data centre has. It is important that the data centre does have the appropriate and correct means to support the IT systems and that the systems are available to deliver the correct power.

As well as focusing on energy efficiency, Ark is also keen to promote ‘Operational Excellence’. What’s behind this phrase?
Behind the Operational Excellence phrase are great people. It relates to a team of people and partners, all the way from design, build to the engineering and on-going operation of the UK’s most efficient data centres. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do - as we build each new data centre, we take lessons learnt from the previous builds, key engineering and technology developments and working with our partners and suppliers, seeking to constantly improve the way we build and operate our data centres.

One of our core values is an absolute zero tolerance for anything that may affect our clients business and the lowest accreditation we operate at is BIL3 - rigour, discipline and wanting to be the best for our clients - our mind-set, our culture.

And how do you believe that this helps Ark to differentiate itself from the rest of the market?
It’s a part of the Ark brand - true end to end resilience, lowest TCO, extremely efficient with a model that enables flexibility and constant innovation - an absolute focus on our clients and our operational performance for them. At the heart it’s about trust – we are competent and consistent in our performance, are a group of people that you can relate to and want to do business with and it’s not just self-interested and transactional – we are business partners.

Ark is a member of both The Green Grid and the Data Centre Alliance. What is the value of belonging to these organisations?
It’s not the ‘belong to’ that is important, it’s the contribution that matters…being an agent for change. Engaging with other leaders from our industry is important in order for us all to advance. We need powerful advocacy for our industry and bodies that can drive standards and best practice. We must encourage the good providers and flush out the poor. We must constantly raise the bar across our industry and encourage continuous innovation. Alliances with The Green Grid and DCA are examples of where we believe such action can be driven and hence our leaning in.