This blog addresses the technical portion of the .au Registry Transformation Project, and this post announces the data centres selected by Afilias for its Australian operations.
After a careful analysis of the available data centres in Australia, Afilias has selected the Equinix services in Melbourne for primary operations and Amazon in Sydney for back up and disaster recovery (if needed).
Headquartered in California, Equinix is a global leader in data centre operations, with 150 data centres in 41 countries servicing over 8500 customers such as Amazon Web Services, Cisco, eBay, Netflix, NASDAQ and AT&T. Afilias uses Equinix in other markets, as it delivers 99.9999% reliability across its network.
The Melbourne data centre (shown below) will house the servers and other equipment needed to support all of the names in the .au domain in a reliable, stable and secure manner.
Located near the central business district, the Equinix facility in Melbourne boasts:
Redundant BGP based internet connectivity (minimum 2 separate links) from diverse carriers on both IPv4 and IPv6 (VIC IX and Equinix Internet Exchange);
Located away from flood zones, airports, high volume transport, other disaster risks
Advanced fire suppression technology; separated fire zones with early detection/suppression systems;
Power from two different power sources plus onsite power that automatically turns on if external power fails; multiple UPS power units;
Energy efficiency: the Melbourne facility use indirect evaporative cooling units to save fuel and reduce emissions;
Peering available with over 30 networks and 60 cloud providers; and
State of the art security, including biometric access for pre-authorized visitors with government issued photo ID, cameras throughout, locked cabinets.
The Melbourne facility was expanded in 2016 with a $37M upgrade that nearly doubled its capacity, enabling it to support even more growth (such as the arrival of Afilias!) in the dynamic Melbourne market. A short video tour of the facility may be found here.
The backup site in Sydney –hosted by Amazon-- includes similar capabilities, ensuring reliable, secure service for .au.
Multiple diesel generators at Equinix Melbourne start immediately if external power is interrupted
Afilias’ equipment is arriving daily now and we are preparing for the installation in our new data centres. Once installed, we’ll complete the testing and will be ready to load all the data and begin operations at the end of June as scheduled.
Have a question or want to suggest a topic for us to cover? Email us at transformationblog@afilias.com.au.
More information on Afilias plc is located at www.afilias.info.