A rare access-all-areas tour of the telco’s facilities in Richmond, Melbourne, including the co-location data floor and the telco's own switch room.
on Mar 19 2010 2:27PM
Aisle view in the main co-location room at the Richmond data centre.
Mirror-image: AAPT Richmond colo configuration reflected in a two-way mirror that faces out to the security desk.
Closed circuit TV cameras are aimed down each row on the colocation floor.
Packed fibre cable organisers run overhead in the main co-location room.
Looking inside the sub-floor plenum.
The caged-off area that houses cross-connects to other data centres and carriers.
As well as CCTV on the data floor, entry to the co-location areas is by fingerprint.
A separate room houses customer cages. You can see them to the bottom of the photo. The entry point to the room is actually at mid-height, with stairs leading down to the cages, hence the perspective of this photo.
One of AAPT’s twin diesel 1675 kVA (approximately 1.6 Megawatt) gensets. Each genset alone is capable of taking the entire data centre load.
The second genset.
One of the diesel genset day tanks. Each genset has a 1,000 litre day tank, supplied from a 30,000 litre bulk fuel tank.
The Richmond data centre is located in a mixed commercial and residential area. This photo shows the noise proofing for the gensets, which are located in the carpark.
Inside the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) /battery room. The data centre is serviced by two 400 kVA Chloride UPS.
Each of the UPS has two banks of 40 batteries.
The view from the carpark which houses rooms for the gensets and UPS. Very residential.
A fresh batch of batteries sit in the office awaiting delivery to smaller AAPT sites. The telco has 14 data centres and 69 points of presence nationwide.
A rare view inside the telco’s own switch room. These are AAPT’s automatic call distribution switches for the call centre. Note the non-standard size of the kit – never easy when it comes to establishing under-floor cooling.
AAPT’s new pride and joy – an IP/MPLS core switch made by Cisco. That’s a million dollars of kit right there. The investment was part of a $30 million upgrade to its IP core network and MPLS edge, and underpins a new range of Ethernet offerings.
Inside the AAPT switch room.
Serious power - the AAPT switch room at Richmond near Melbourne.
A wider view of the AAPT switch room at the Richmond facility.
Aisle view in the main co-location room at the Richmond data centre.