The Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has chosen Keysource, the global data centre and critical environment specialist, to undertake a pre-construction services contract for the data centre upgrade at its Daresbury Laboratory facility in Warrington. This will involve supporting the live operation upgrade of the data centre facility which includes the lifecycle replacement of critical power, cooling and protection systems.

Under the terms of the deal, Keysource will be responsible for establishing a detailed brief and performance specification for stakeholder agreement and senior level approval. Preferred solutions will then be agreed to meet the brief including associated commercial, technical and delivery related risks and considerations. Finally Keysource will produce a developed design and commercial information for the contract and complete key enabling activities in preparation for the construction phase.

The agreed pre-construction approach will enable Keysource to collaborate with STFC to plan the works and mitigate risk to the high-performance computing load which must remain available throughout. In addition, this approach to the project enables the agency drivers to complete the project within a relatively short programme with critical path activities to be confidently agreed and executed providing a smooth transition into the delivery and commissioning phase.

Jon Healy, Operations Director at Keysource, said: “Having a robust pre-construction phase before undertaking the design and build or upgrade of a data centre facility has a number of major benefits for clients. These include consistent tender responses and an ability to maintain cost control. For organisations that are operating a live environment it also ensures that there is no impact on existing operations.”