Further Advantages of Our Network

The northern Virginia area is an ideal location for a Data Centre. A very large portion of the world's Internet traffic passes through here, and the area is not subject to earthquakes, tornadoes, floods or other natural disasters.

We are located at the true heart of the Internet, and in a very safe and secure area. This central location ensures optimal connectivity, speed, and routing, minimizing the number of hops - and thus the chance of any problems. We are located right beside a great number of private and public peering points, in one of the most densely and best connected areas in the world, including directly peering at the Equinix Exchanges (IBX'es) in Ashburn, Virginia and Chicago, Illinois, at the NYIIX in NYC, New York, at PAIX in Palo Alto, CA and Seattle, WA, at the SIX in Seattle, WA, and at Any2 in both Los Angeles, CA and San Jose, CA. All providers have multiple, redundant routes into the DC/VA area. This is further built upon by our redundant connectivity to multiple Tier 1 providers via separate circuits, terminating at diverse locations in Virginia and the District of Columbia. We are redundantly set-up Internet connectivity wise (multiple backbone connectivity providers), as well as physically. In terms of fibre optics, we have multiple private OC-192 SONET rings with multiple financially-healthy fibre providers, taking different physical paths.

We have built our facilities in the best possible area for Internet connectivity, and then further reinforced it with redundancy in all possible forms. We operate four sets of two parallel (redundant) PowerWare UPS systems - eight (8) systems total, with enough battery capacity being able to power all the DCA3 servers for over an hour in case of a power outage. In case of a more extensive outage, the two parallel 1.25MW diesel power generators - that can run indefinitely, if need be - would kick into effect. Even if one generator fails, there would be no impact whatsoever and all would remain running, as the generators are set-up in a parallel, fully redundant, mode. Multiple redundant DataAire precision cooling AC Units - over 200 tons all together - are in use, too, maintaining a consistent temperature of 18C and a dust-free environment at our Data Centre. In addition, there is ample room for expansion: for adding additional generators (including large fuel tanks), AC units, outside condensers, and bringing in more utility power, past the current 2000A @ 480 Volts, 3-phase, that it has now; in fact, all is prepared already in advance to double the power and AC capacity of the facility.

To ensure the best routing of our customers' data, we pay for commercial top-priority transit network capacity to our tier 1 backbone providers and have full burst capacity available at all times on all circuits. Thus we receive the highest level of service, including 99.99% or 100% uptime and no packet-loss guarantees, from all our connectivity providers. 90%+ of traffic from us to end users only passes over one or two backbones on its way to reaching the end destination. In addition, we are committed to under 50% network capacity utilization at all times; we ensure that our network always has double the capacity it needs, even at peak hours.

Our network design and operations ensure the very best connectivity, speed, and reliability possible: 100% network uptime, no packet loss, and under 3 ms low latency connection to Tier 1 backbones

Our DCA3 network & site in summary: