Location and Construction

Evocative's Emeryville Data Center is located at 1400 65th Street, Suite 150, in Emeryville, California. The facility totals over 15,000 square feet, purpose-built for commercial colocation. The building in which the facility resides was retrofitted in 1999 to the highest seismic standard applicable, prior to the construction of the facility.

Colocation space is offered in individually keyed, locking cabinets or in flexible cage space. Evocative also provides managed servers, managed firewall services, and managed backup from this facility.

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Carriers and Network Infrastructure

The facility is fed by two diverse fiber entrances and is a "lit facility" with AT&T (SBC), Verizon (MCI/WorldCom/UUNet), and Qwest. Evocative has also has a private fiber link to the carrier hotel at 200 Paul Avenue and extending down the peninsula to Santa Clara. This additional link gives Evocative multi-gigabit access to over 40 carriers, including Level 3, InterNAP, and Cogent. more network info

NPA-NXX is 510-652, and the nearest Central Office is Oakland 11.

Power

Evocative's protected AC power infrastructure is comprised of two independent protected power plants: a Powerware 9315 parallel redundant architecture system, and a new Liebert 600T multi-module N+1 architecture system. Both systems are double-conversion online type and backed by 1MW Caterpillar diesel generator. In the event of an interruption of utility power, the UPS systems carry the site's critical loads for a brief 30-60 seconds while the generator starts and comes up to speed. The generator is configured for a "hospital start," meaning that the block and coolant temperature are maintained over 120 degrees and special fuel handling ensure a quick start and stable operation with no warm-up time. The dual Automatic Transfer Switch ensures that transfers between utility and generator power are completed quickly. The generator can carry the load of all of the site's systems, from the UPS plants to the coffee machine, as long as necessary until utility power is restored. The site has 1500 gallons of on-site fuel storage (about two and a half days of continuous runtime at current load). Refueling contractors provide replenishing fuel within hours of our request. Evocative runs the generator monthly to exercise the unit, and performs annual full-load testing. We also force a transfer of the site from utility to generator and back quarterly to ensure that all automatic transfer functions perform normally.

Redundancy is designed-in throughout the power system and includes multiple power paths between the UPS systems and Power Distribution Units (PDUs). The multi-module system design allows for failures of a UPS module without the loss of battery protection to the critical loads. Bypass wrap-arounds allow critical infrastructure to be maintained or expanded without interruptions of service. This gives Evocative's power system over "six nines" of uptime--far in excess of the industry goal of five nines.

The N+1 architecture gives source power redundancy to your colocated equipment against UPS module failures, even the "single-corded" loads--dual power supplies and separate power circuits are not required for this level of redundancy as they are with our competitors that offer only 2N UPS architectures.

The site is also provisioned with a DC power plant capable of delivering 2400 amperes of 48VDC, and sufficient battery to run the full load for four hours (although the DC plant is fully generator-backed, so this runtime would normally never be used even during a utility outage).

Cooling

Evocative's cooling infrastructure is provided by nine 20-ton Data Aire CRAC units located throughout the site, plus two 10-ton units, a 6-ton unit, and five rooftop package units. Because municipal water supplies are a likely point of failure in large earthquakes, the system does not use cooling towers for shedding heat generated by the air conditioning systems, so no water supply is required and the site can run indefinitely without it.

The cooling system is controlled by coordinated microcontrollers that monitor the health of running units, start backup units as necessary, and roll loads to ensure even loading of the units throughout the site. The control system also provides notice to the site monitoring system, making its activities visible to our staff and providing pager notification in the event of any exceptions or anomalies.

Security

The site has a digital camera system that records full motion video of activities throughout the site. Video storage is sufficient for 40-45 days of normal archival storage, and special archives can be made to store video indefinitely. All entrances and exits from the site are recorded.

Access to the site is controlled by a combination of card readers and biometric scanners. Access can be immediately revoked if necessary with a simple phone call to our support team. All accesses are logged by the security software, including pathway access throughout the site. The security system is also monitored by a contracted security company that provides emergency response under certain events (such as a door being forced open, whether during business hours or off-hours).

Fire Protection and Suppression

The first line of defense for fire is prevention, but right on the heels of that is early detection. Our site uses the VESDA aspirating laser scanner smoke detection system, which senses the earliest products of cumbustion far in advance of visible smoke or fire. The system is generally regarded as being 100 times or more sensitive than regular smoke detectors.

In the event that a fire does break out, the site uses a double-interlocked dry-pipe fire detection and suppression system. Sprinkler pipes are kept filled with compressed air, so no water is normally in the pipes. In the event of smoke detection by two detectors, then and only then will the system open a water valve and allow water to flow into the pipes. And even then, water will not flow to the floor unless a sprinkler head is burned open by the heat of fire--if the fire is extinguished before any of these events, water will not be released.

And about that first line of defense: prevention. We carefully monitor the materials that customers (and our staff) keep throughout the site, in cabinets and in cages. Combustible materials such as cardboard and paper are not allowed to be stored in cabinets, for example. But, for those customers who like to have those things handy, we offer separately coded storage lockers.

Facility Monitoring

Power, cooling, security, and other core infrastructure systems are monitored by an integrated, graphical monitoring and notification system. This system provides detailed levels of monitoring of core infrastructure such as the number of compressors operating in each air conditioning unit and their total runtime, to input and output voltages of the UPS and DC power plants, and even to the extent of providing current measurements of each individual electrical circuit delivered to customer cabinets and cages. Alarm points can be set on any monitored parameter, and we use the system extensively to keep us instantly apprised of any potential, imminent, or current operational exceptions.

Maintenance -- Pay Now, Don't Pay Later

The best equipment in the world quickly becomes worthless if it's not properly and completely maintained. Evocative keeps a strict, thorough maintenance regimen for all systems throughout the site, and maintains best-in-industry contractors for maintenance of critical systems such as air conditioning, UPS, and generator. We take pride in making sure that every piece of equipment is working perfectly at all times, and we never cut corners by deferring maintenance on backup units or allowing "non-critical" systems to operate without their designed-in redundancy.

Remote Hands

Sometimes you just can't make the drive just to reboot a server, or undo the firewall change that just locked you out of your network. Evocative's staff can reboot servers, make server or firewall configuration changes, and help you diagnose and recover from other issues with just a phone call.

Amenities

To help you be as efficient and comfortable as possible while working in the facility, Evocative provides several important amenities. Wheeled "crash carts" have monitors, keyboards (USB and PS/2), and rack mounting hardware for your use in the facility. And let's face it, the colocation floor is built for servers, not people--it's noisy and cold, and not the most comfortable place to work. But our "Customer Landing Zone" provides comfortable seating and work surfaces, with power outlets and ethernet ports, so you can work comfortably with your laptop. Our break area offers complimentary coffee, tea, hot chocolate, bottled water, and even light snacks. Several restaurants and coffee houses are within one block of our front door.