Aegis Data provides high specification colocation services to businesses in the UK. It owns and operates one 34,000ft data centre and has a second data centre, Aegis Two, planned for the same site in 2016.
In addition to colocation services, Aegis offers disaster recovery facilities (offices and technology labs), business continuity planning, data centre migration and the ability to house high performance servers that require high power densities.
Aegis offers a desirable value proposition a colocation service that that can deliver high power densities at low cost, without using excessive amounts of energy.
Location
Aegis Data operates from a registered office in London owns one purpose built tier 3 data centre in Godalming, Surrey. The location benefits from excellent road and rail transport links and is built on a hill and set away from major roads, railways and flight paths to eliminate disruption and flood risk.
Aegis One is described by its owner as one of the UKs new breed of data centre. It was designed to excel at cooling efficiently at very high power densities, so that clients could maximise rack space without either power headroom or density limitations. It was located away from London Docklands, where most of the regions data centres are located, in order to take advantage of higher power possibilities outside of the capital. The site is carrier neutral with a good range of high speed fibre networks. A low latency of less than 0.5ms makes up for the greater geographical distance from the Docklands hub.
The extra power availability allows Aegis to offer up to 30kw per rack and back-up generators are on standby in the event of an outage. It offers N+1 redundancy for UPS and generators and 24/7 security with ten access levels.
Energy
The Aegis data centre was designed with energy efficiency as a top priority and took five years to design and build to high specifications. Direct Fresh Air Cooling (DFAC) technology is the driving USP for Aegis. Free Air keeps servers cool and efficient and Aegis PUE rating at 1.1 which in turn brings a significant reduction in energy consumption and operating costs. Since Aegis customers are charged for the power they use, the savings are passed on to them. Chillers located on the roof can provide extra cooling on (rare) hot days, eliminating the need for mechanical internal coolers.
Funding/business model
Aegis Data Limited is a privately held company. It was founded in 2009 and spent four years in the planning, design and build stage of the Aegis One data centre. Initial funding was secured in 2011, and in 2014 Aegis secured a £10 million crowd-funded investment in the form of EIS shares and a secured loan from Rockpool Investments. The funding was to meet initial operational costs and the expansion plans for Aegis 2.
Customers and partners
Aegis was able to sign up customers up to two years in advance of opening Aegis One. Current clients include Managed Services provider Volodi, IT Support provider Ramsac and enterprise content consultancy The Content Group.
Technology partners include Sunspeed Transport Services and NextConnect. Aegis Data is also an IBM Business Partner and member of the European Data Centre Group.
A competitively priced high performance data centre
Aegis prides itself on its ability to slash energy costs for customers without impacting on efficiency, power or technological capabilities. As one of major cost implications for businesses commissioning data centre services, this offers a big pull to companies with extensive power requirements.
High speed, low latency connections means Aegis One, and soon Aegis Two, are conveniently placed to service the financial and business district at London Docklands, whilst also offering an attractive pull to smaller companies based in and around Surrey. Furthermore, Aegis Data works in partnership with customers to create optimal and scalable services on flexible contracts.