How Experian is retro-fitting its datacentre to boost efficiency

To most people, Experian is a credit rating agency. Consumers only hear about the company when they are turned down for a loan or credit card. But the firm does far more than this – it is a data company. It provides analytics to banks, marketing services to help retailers understand customer demographics, and has a part to play in fraud detection. Its datacentre knows a lot about you.

Experian operates in more than 50 countries globally and runs twin datacentres in Nottingham, Texas and Brazil, along with a number of datacentres in Asia. Barry Westbury, operations director, global technology services at Experian, is responsible for managing the two established facilities in Texas and the UK. 

“Historically, from an IT perspective Experian was regionalised, but since 2008 it has been on a journey to globalise," he said. "One of the first tasks was to globalise the network. It sounds easy, but it is a challenge for a company that was previously regionalised.”

The Fairham House datacentre in Nottingham is configured in a similar way to Texas, with a back-up facility 12 miles away linked by diverse 640Gbps dark fibre, running left and right out of the building. “We have tried to eliminate any single point of failure in any of the Experian infrastructure,” said Westbury.

Fairham House is the main production centre in the UK, representing a £36.1m investment for Experian, a purpose-built datacentre constructed in 2004. It is a single-storey, out-of-town facility occupying 78,000 square feet with 16,000 square feet of expansion space. As well as IT redundancy, the facility runs four generators, four chillers, and multiple power feeds into the site.

Security is also built around multiple layers of redundancy. For instance, Experian runs two firewalls and several anti-virus systems from the major providers. Experian has not skimped on physical security either. Taxis only stop outside the site, which is located in an industrial park about 20 minutes’ drive from the city centre. 

The building is fitted with blast-proof glass, motion detectors surround the building, and a moat was dug on the site for drainage to prevent intruders breaking in through the sewage system. Only pre-announced visitors can enter through the front entrance. The sunken reed bed is purely on the front of the building, and provides security from the road side. The other three sides have earthworks to increase physical security against vehicle penetration. They are also protected by the tremor fencing which also has an infrared beam around it.

The dimensions of the building are similar to the Texas site, which was built two years earlier, said Westbury. However the UK site, being two years younger, is taking advantage of some of the newer developments that were available at the time of construction. “If we did it again tomorrow, we would certainly do it differently,” Westbury conceded.

The control room runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with three shifts of staff. At peak times, up to 20 people monitor IT systems and facilities systems from the control room using Tivoli as the overall system management tool, which manages other tools.