The Client
Founded in 1999, Highbridge Estates is a family-run, London-based real estate business.
The Challenge
As the landlord of 3-7 Herbal Hill, Highbridge Estates had an existing tenant (Seven Publishing Group) who occupied all six floors of the office building. However, the tenant was in the process of consolidating their business and planned to reduce their occupancy to just one floor. This left the landlord to market the five unoccupied floors including the basement to new prospective tenants.
The existing building cabling was distributed from a Main Equipment Room (MER) on 1st floor and a Satellite Equipment Room (SER) on 2nd floor. The MER is the transition point for all the voice and data cabling that enters the building. The SER provides a similar function to the MER but is usually located close to the department or company that uses the equipment in a designated space, such as a floor of an office building. As a publisher, the existing tenant had a resilient solution installed to mitigate against an outage to the business.
To market the five available floors of Herbal Hill, Highbridge Estates had to consider tenant cabling that was separate for each floor for security and accessibility purposes. On inspection, the existing power supplies were determined to be inadequate and required an upgrade to make safe and compliant. The landlord also required a leased line to be able to provide Internet connectivity as part of their marketing strategy.
Modern Networks was selected as the solution provider by Highbridge Estates based on our knowledge and experience of delivering IT infrastructure projects to commercial properties. First, we investigated how to modify the existing network cabling infrastructure without having to replace it all, which would have proved costly for the landlord.
The Solution
Our solution to meet the landlord’s requirements for Herbal Hill was to re-model the existing setup, create a secure tenant data centre, provide Internet connectivity through the landlord, dedicated network and server cabinets for each floor, and intelligent metered power for accurate IT equipment power consumption and accurate billing.
First, Modern Networks re-modelled all 6 floors of the building into separate defined cabinet spaces using existing cabling. Second, we designed and consolidated the MER on 1st floor into a Data Centre (working with cabling contactor Phoenix Optics). Third, we fitted out the old MER and created a Network Cabinet and a Server Cabinet per floor. Fourth, we designed and installed dedicated intelligent power supplies per cabinet so that the 1st floor tenant did not pay for the metered electricity of all floors. We also upgraded the electrical consumer unit to facilitate the safe use of electrical current (Crestel Contracts Ltd, electrical installation and maintenance).
Next, we compressed and made redundant the SER cabling on 2nd floor, freeing up valuable, rentable floor space. Then we installed additional network cabling in the basement, which had previously been used as a kitchen and dining area. The new cabling enabled user seating for new tenants. Finally, Modern Networks produced a Data Centre policy document for all tenants to follow around access and security control. We also created a permit to work document for tenants and any third-party support services to abide by. The project took six months from inception to completion.
Challenges
The only noteworthy project challenge was the inadequate electricity supply at the Distribution Board, which required the safe working load was increased to cover the additional consumption required by the IT equipment in the 1st floor data centre.
The Results
Our solution enabled Highbridge Estates to market Herbal Hill with the promise of connectivity and IT security from the first day of occupancy. The building now has its own on-premise secure Data Centre, which is only accessible through a permit system. Tenants are allocated their own dedicated, secure network and server cabinets.
Businesses can often wait weeks, sometimes months, for business broadband to be installed at a new office. This is frustrating, costly and inconvenient. The dedicated leased line installed at Herbal Hill provides tenants with Internet connectivity from day one of occupancy.
Finally, providing a metered electricity supply per network cabinet ensures tenants only pay for the power they use.