Well, today is ANZAC day, and obviously there's not much happening on the data centre front - at least nothing physical.

We know some staff and contractors are working behind the scenes finalising the design - aspects such as the exact routes for pipe work & cabling, locking in the initial rack layout, and other stuff like that.

Below is a picture of two thirds of the initial mains supply switchboard. These two sections when assembled are a shade over 5 metres long - they've been built in two parts for shipping.

There's also two UPS output switchboards - one of which is pictured in the second photo (both UPS output boards are identical).

In addition to these, the final build will have 1 general purpose switchboard to run lights and unprotected outlets, 2 boards to feed the air conditioning units, and 8 boards to distribute power to the customer racks.

We're sure that the amount of copper used in our datacentre is, in some small way, contributing to it's ever-increasing price. From switchboards, to air conditioning plumbing, to rack cabling, to mains supply cabling - there's a lot of copper.

The picture below is the 3-phase busbars in a section of our new supply switchboard. Each bar is 80mm wide and 10mm high, with two bars paralleled for each phase. A lot of copper to carry a lot of current.

We'll have more photos of the switchboards, which are almost completed, over the next few days.

Below is a list of some of the items we have purchased/are purchasing for DC3.

- 6 x APC air-con units
- switchboard
- 750 kVa skid mounted genset, sound attenuated canopy, with autostart on mains failure, SNMP capable.
- floor stands for air-con units
- electrical materials
- pipe works for air-con units
- raised flooring
- FM 200 fire supression (HFC-227 heptafluoropropane)
- VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus)
- 4 x 200kVa UPS's
- air-con units for UPS room
- power monitoring system

We will soon provide a project timeline so you are able to see when these are being installed in the data centre.

Designed to meet customer power requirements now and well into the future, the facility will provide up to 800 watts per sqm in the technical area from day 1, with the ability to scale to 1500 watts per sqm in the not too distant future.

Two busy days have passed – PIPE have now installed 288 core Dark Fibre through the western side of the building into DC3. We have utilised state of the art Sm@rtcore small tube technology, supplied by the world’s leading manufacturer and deployed by PIPE’s own specialist engineers. PIPE will be providing fully diverse paths from DC3, route 2 is currently advancing through the design phase.