Towergate uses the 38U NetShelter CX, the tallest NetShelter CX pictured here. The NetShelter CX Office comes in four sizes: Mini (12U), 18U, 24U, or 38U.
Towergate, Europe’s largest independent insurance intermediary, employing more than 3,800 people in 100 offices, has taken the decision to deploy the APC™ by Schneider Electric™ NetShelter CX enclosure in future offices as it expands.
Peter Morris, Head of Towergate’s property management unit, didn’t want the capital expenditure of building new comms rooms with costly, dedicated air conditioning. He asked the IT team if they could source an economical, stand‐alone alternative.
“We wanted a cabinet solution that offered the technical functionality of an air-conditioned comms room but without the expense. It needed to be capable of cooling itself, even with high thermal loads, to run silently in the open office even with noisy servers and switches inside, and blend discretely with the general office furniture,” said Morris.
Towergate now uses NetShelter CX enclosures to house the entire communications infrastructure at all new branch offices that do not have existing comms room facilities.
“When you take into account the cost of demountable partitioning and installing dedicated air conditioning, plus the hardware cost of basic data racks, we estimate that by using these quiet enclosures we save approximately 59% per site, without taking into account the reduced floor space costs,” said Morris. “What’s more, these server cabinets are a far better use of floor space, and in the event of an office move or a lease running out they can easily be redeployed at another site and aren’t the sunk cost of a permanent comms room facility.” “We have deployed several of these already and we’re exceptionally impressed with the cooling system and the noise reduction performance. We haven’t looked back on the decision,” said Morris.
An instant “mini computer room”
The soundproofed NetShelter CX Office enclosure includes everything you need to house a highly reliable IT deployment quickly and efficiently, almost anywhere:
- Highly adjustable EIA-compliant rack inside
- Fully lockable and can be bolted to the floor
- Integrated Rack PDU for instant power
- Quick installation cabling feature set
- Integrated ventilation with up to 3.6kW thermal capacity