25 September 2018
UKFast claims to have launched a new “state-of-the-art” hosting facility designed primarily to meet the needs of its government and public sector customers.
Based at the recently expanded UKFast campus near Manchester Science Park, MaNOC 9 is said to deliver an “unprecedented level of security and technical capability”.
UKFast says the new Tier 3 data centre represents a multi-million pound investment and is equipped with multi-factor access security, CCTV systems, razor-wire fencing and high-security, single-entry door systems.
The company adds that to enable the direct delivery of AI solutions, MaNOC 9 is equipped with NVIDIA DGX-1 supercomputers.
It says these “utilise high-powered GPU cards and CUDA technology to accelerate deep neural network and machine learning development”.
Stephen Jewell, UKFast’s public sector director, says: “There’s an appetite from public sector organisations to unlock new technologies like AI, big data and machine learning.
“We’re enabling them to do this by plugging in and accessing burstable cloud facilities at a moment's notice, which is something they just couldn’t do before.”
According to UKFast, the new data centre is also installed with the latest digital metering equipment to ensure power consumption levels are optimised, “guaranteeing” the most efficient and cost-effective energy usage possible.
It also says the site is concurrently maintainable, utilising separate A and B supply paths for power and cooling, allowing for work to be undertaken on hardware with no disruption to client solutions.
UKFast says its revenue growth is being driven in part by rapidly accelerating public sector cloud sales, which saw a 100 per cent increase during the first half of this year.
The launch of MaNOC 9 follows a £2.3m investment in the company’s government data centre space in 2016 and the acquisition of public sector cloud hosting firm Secure Information Assurance in 2017.
UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones says: “Our existing government data centre is filling up fast and we realise that now is the time to deliver strategic investment and accommodate the growing demand for our services from the UK government and public sector.
“By creating this facility we also expand our ability to deliver replicated environments to the public sector, which is an increasingly common demand.”