Indra launches a large state-of-the-art data center to reinforce its cloud services

As a key piece in the framework of its Cloud Computing strategy, Indra, the  number one technology multinational in Spain and one of the leaders in Europe and Latin America, has launched a large state-of-the-art data processing center (DPC) in its installations in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid). The new building has a surface area of almost 5,000 square metres spread over four storeys, of which more than 1,000 is devoted to housing the new server room with a capacity for almost 450 RACKS. Another 700 square metres are devoted to a space for future extensions of the DPC, with a capacity to house another 370 RACKS.

This Data Center brings together all the services that Indra has previously delivered from the CPDs in its head offices in Arroyo de La Vega and centers located in Anabel Segura and Telémaco. These modern installations, subject to strict security measures, provide the infrastructure, processing capacity and services need to support the information systems of somewhere in the region of 60 major customers in all sectors as well as 36,000 users of the company itself, located in offices in 41 countries worldwide.

This cutting-edge system has all the characteristics specified for TIER III installations. This classification was created by the Uptime Institute to determine the level of reliability associated to four availability levels. Level III is given to DPCs with capabilities for carrying out any planned activities on any component in the infrastructure without operational interruptions and translates to an availability of 99.982%, which is equivalent to an annual downtime of 1.57 hours. The centre also has ISO 27001 information security certifications as well as ISO 9001 and ISO 20000 quality certifications, which guarantee that the processes used are compliant with ITIL best practices.

With this new centre, the technology multinational reinforces its capacity to offer in-cloud services through Flex IT, its advanced on-demand delivery model. This is a proprietary model for providing Cloud services that has been developed by Indra and which uses the full potential that is offered by the Cloud, aligning the availability of infrastructures and services to the real demand of clients at any time.

From its cloud, Indra offers its customers all the IT management processes needed to support the different possible service levels: Desktop as a Service, Infrastructure Management as a Service, Application Management as a Service and Software as a Service. Indra's offer encompasses support for systems and shared resources, operation and maintenance services as well as shared methodologies and cloud standards.

Comprehensive security

Security is one of the most important aspects of the new DPC, both from a standpoint of data confidentiality as well as the availability of the service and the detection of threats.

From a physical perspective, all the systems for power, cooling and communication in the DPC have an N+1 configuration. The building has a dual power supply from different substations and two transformer centres (with two 2,500 kVA transformers, one of which is devoted only to IT systems). One single transformer centre is capable of powering all the building. It is highly unlikely that there would be power failures from both substations at the same time. However, in this case, an emergency diesel generator with a tank of 40,000 litres would automatically start. This would be sufficient to power the building for at least 48 hours. Its capacity would be similar to that required to power a residential area with 700 houses with an average consumption.

The installations also have advanced fire detection and extinguishing systems as well as entrance controls and alarm systems to detect intruders throughout the entire perimeter.

In the server room, there are "cool corridors" that enable the systems to be cooled in a uniform and energy efficient manner. For security reasons, all the wiring is overhead since this facilitates its installation, the identification of possible problems and the resolution of faults. Likewise, the ground floor has two coolers, each with a thermal power of 1MW to cool the DPC equipped with free cooling batteries.

With regard to the technical infrastructure, Indra's in-cloud delivery system is based on a DPC Virtual Architecture for each customer which, in a shared storage and communications process environment, uses technological solutions from manufacturers such as Cisco or Checkpoint to securely isolate them. Indra therefore provides a controlled environment that guarantees the isolation of each customer through secure access via virtual private networks and a double firewall level.

Advanced communications and control centre

The leading communications companies arrive to the new centre redundantly and by different routes. This allows the selection of the supplier and guarantees the availability of the service. The centre also houses one of the nodes of Indra's Internet Service Provider (ISP) services.

The operational management of the data center is performed through a Network Operation Center (NOC) which is located in the building that manages both the centre as well as the 24/7 processes of the hosted customers. The NOC houses the physical infrastructure (panel displays, alarm systems) as well as the control tools of the different essential systems of the DPC (electrical power, cooling, etc.)

All the DPC operations are supported by the most advanced tools available on the market, both for the management of IT processes (incidents, changes...), the management of infrastructure (monitoring, security...) and industrialisation tools (batch process management, automation of system management, among other functions). Indra works with its key partners (Netapp, BMC, Cisco...) in the deployment and integration of its tools. This allows geographically dispersed teams throughout Spain and Latin America to be able to provide support to companies hosted in this data center.

International offices of financial entities, airlines from countries such as Brazil or Australia, energy companies with a presence abroad or large public organisations, among others, receive support for their IT functions through Indra's new center located in San Fernando de Henares.

At the cutting edge of Cloud services

Indra is at the cutting edge of Cloud Computing services and solutions thanks to its comprehensive offer, called Indra In-Cloud, which encompasses the entire value chain of Information Technology services: from the consultation (helping to optimise customers' capacities and to minimise their costs) to the development of new solutions, not forgetting the outsourcing of IT services.

Around the middle of 2011, Indra announced the development of a proprietary Cloud Computing model called Flex-IT that would provide on-demand services to customers. Flex-IT is based on the premise that managing Information Technology requires a combination of traditional as well as virtual models supported on private and/or public clouds. This delivery model, which is more evolved than the traditional one, represents an important change in the way that outsourcing services are offered since it provides access in record time from any location and only paying for what is used.

Although Indra has been providing SaaS services to its customers since 2005 using flexible pricing models, the new Flex-IT model is a drastic change in how the technological resources needed by customers are made available to them. Flex-IT allows a better and more efficient management of the infrastructure, and this must translate into improved competitiveness and prices for end customers.

Indra is the number one technology multinational in Spain and one of the leaders in Europe and Latin America. It is the second European company in its sector in terms of R&D, with €550 million invested in the last three years. Its turnover in 2011 was €2,688m and today more than half of its income is from international markets. The company employs 40,000 professionals and has customers in 118 countries.