One of the UK’s leading online gaming firms has
described the facilities at Cable & Wireless’ local datacentres
as world class.
Virgin Games recently relocated servers to one
of Cable & Wireless’ local facilities, which host servers for
hundreds of businesses from all over the world. However an article
published in Computing magazine suggested the online company had
had to review the computer systems it was using due to limitations
imposed by the island’s power supply.
Virgin Games technical director Leigh Brazier,
who was quoted in the story, said the article had missed the point.
Rather than being restricted by the power available, the company
had in fact chosen to use systems that met its environmental
objectives.
The company is part of Richard Branson’s Virgin
Group.
‘Virgin Group is very much committed to
developing and promoting environmentally friendly businesses, and
as such we need to think about our power consumption. From our
perspective, the relocation was an opportunity to think not twice,
but three times,’ said Mr Brazier.
‘The cap on our power requirements is what we
chose, rather than the limitation on what Cable & Wireless
could provide. We took the decision that it was a positive
incentive for us to look at the kit that we are using.’
Mr Brazier said the company had looked at a
number of jurisdictions around the world where it could base its
servers, and one of the prime reasons it chose the Bailiwick was
the world class hosting facilities available in Guernsey.
‘The infrastructure that Cable & Wireless
has put in place to support the finance and e-commerce industries
is excellent,’ he said.
Both Cable & Wireless and Guernsey
Electricity said that the article’s suggestion that there was a cap
on the amount of power available was inaccurate.
The two companies had worked together to ensure
that the local data centre facilities were more than a match of any
location in the world.
Russell Sharman, Chief Technology Officer for
Cable & Wireless in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, said
this was reflected in the increase in business which the company
and other local technology providers have reported in recent
years.
‘This is new business being attracted to
Guernsey because of the state-of-the-art facilities available here,
and the world class telecommunications links with the rest of the
world,’ he said
As far as power is concerned, the company’s
local datacentres can meet virtually any customer’s requirements,
but it fully supports those who want to limit their
consumption.
‘We welcome customers like Virgin Games who
wish to consider using energy efficient systems, to reduce their
overall power consumption as that is good for the
environment.’
Guernsey Electricity engineering director Steve
Morris said the company had installed additional capacity for Cable
& Wireless’ local datacentres, which far exceeded current
demand. If necessary, this could also be further increased in
future.
‘By their very nature datacentres require a lot
of power, 24 hours a day. You cannot just introduce that load onto
the network without careful planning, so we have gone to great
lengths to ensure that we can meet this demand. The suggestion that
we are imposing some sort of limitation is simply untrue,’ he
said.
The Computing article said the island’s power
‘is supplied by a nuclear power station in France’. Mr Morris said
this reflected a rather simplistic understanding of the
situation.
‘It would be true to say that around 75% of the
island’s electricity is supplied from the European grid, via the
submarine cable link, and a high proportion of that does come from
nuclear power. However we are not simply plugged into a nuclear
power station in France, as this article suggests,’ he said.