Our Data Center

Solid Security

You might wonder why security is at the top of the list of details. Security is the most important characteristic of our hosting services. We understand and recognize that a single security lapse could significantly injure our clients and we work with them to deploy appropriate security for their hosting environment. First and for most for most organizations is a carefully configured and managed firewall and ipHouse can provide fully managed firewall services for vmForge and Data Center hosting clients.

ipHouse divides security into three separate fields:

Physical Access:

  • Access to the data center is controlled by security and staged systems governed by strict access control procedures.
  • Within the data center physical access to equipment is restricted to individually locked cabinets and cages.
  • Video surveillance systems cover all entrance/exits, and lobbies, man-traps, ancillary rooms and generator equipment 24x7.
  • The data center is located within the Minneapolis SafeZone

Network Access:

  • ipHouse maintains a high level of network infrastructure security following accepted industry practices. We provide security of the ipHouse network in the following manners:
    • Restricting access to, and requiring regular periodic changes to passwords for ipHouse infrastructure.
    • Hardening and maintaining operating systems for ipHouse infrastructure.
    • Utilizing encryption and encapsulation methods for ipHouse data.

By default, ipHouse does not restrict network access from the public Internet to hosting services. ipHouse strongly recommends purchasing managed firewall services as part of your hosting package.

Remote Access:

  • ipHouse provides unrestricted Internet access to our hosting services. Customers should utilize industry standard remote access tools to gain remote access to their platform.

Effective Environmental Controls

The ipHouse data center has a glycol HVAC system independent of the facility and is N+1 for all areas of the data center. The data center HVAC system consists of 9 ATS up-flow CRAC units rated at 20 tons (240,000 BTU) each. Details on each unit:

  • Two 10-ton compressors with individual glycol piping
  • Two fans
  • 17 pph canister steam humidifier
  • 10 kWatt reheat coil
  • R-22 coolant
  • Condensate Pump

Battery room and electric room are also N+1 systems. Dry coolers are N+1 with separate pumps for each dry cooler. HVAC systems are monitored by an Integ system notifying technicians of change in system status. All cooling fluid piping is supported by drip pans with a separate leak detection and alarm system. The entire HVAC system is supported by the generator.

Fire detection is a dual zone ion/photo sensor system with dual cross-zone trigger release mechanism. Fire prevention is a self contained dry-pipe pre-action system (including dry-pipe valve and air compressor) interconnected with the building main fire water riser system designed at 200 sq. ft. per sprinkler head. Water release of the system is a two-stage process that requires both smoke detection via photo/ion and heat of at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit beneath sprinkler head(s) to activate the system.

Conditioned Power

The ipHouse facility is fed by three 1200 Amp 480 Volt feeders, one active, two spare. Power is fed to an automatic transfer switch and backed up by a 750 kWatt generator with a 1000 gallon belly tank. Fuel is on-call 24x7 with a 2 hour time-to-delivery.

Both AC and DC UPS power is fed from a separate 2,300 sq. ft. battery room onto separate cable trays for DC power and conduit for AC power.

The diesel generator backs up the HVAC system, lighting system, access control system, and fire suppression system. Power is customizable for customers with private cages.

For our colocation customers, ipHouse cabinets and cages come with their own dedicated power circuits. At ipHouse, you do not share a power circuit with your neighbor. All power is protected and conditioned 24x7 by a UPS which in turn is backed by the generator.

Internet Bandwidth

We provide you with redundant multi-homed Internet bandwidth via three Tier 1 national backbones. When you choose ipHouse, your traffic is directly routed via the best path. Real time statistics on our upstream connections are available to the public 24x7.

Our connections to Level3, Hurricane Electric and TW Telecom provide you with a carefree high-bandwidth, low-latency Internet experience. ipHouse also peers with local businesses, ISP's and other organizations via the Midwest Internet Cooperative Exchange to ensure that your traffic always takes the best route to its destination.

Flexible Carrier Neutrality

The data center is fed from two separate underground vaults accessing the streets on opposite ends of the facility. The vaults provide communications access for the Carriers, LECs and CLECs housed in the building. ipHouse customers with equipment colocated in the data center can choose to use both ipHouse and another carrier for their Internet access using full BGP routing and an ASN.

24x7 Monitoring

The data center environment is monitored 24x7. All environmental systems are under service agreements for both preventive maintenance and repair. Systems are regularly tested and proactively maintained to ensure their reliability.