Data centre and enterprise locations
Knowledge Centre
In this guide:
Data centres
Enterprise locations
Nearnet buildings
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Buildings | Ports
Connections | Cloud
IP Access | Data centres
Delivery | Bandwidth
APIs | Pricing
Resilience | Operations
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Introduction
On Demand services are available in data centres and enterprise buildings that are directly connected to the Colt fibre network.
New On Demand ports can be delivered either in near real time (where capacity is available) or via a physical capacity build. Real time delivery is typically available in larger data centres, whereas delivery to enterprise buildings often requires a new capacity build.
Customers can check which data centres support delivery of On Demand ports in real time here.
This section explains the On Demand building connectivity model.
Selecting a building for your On Demand service
Colt’s On Demand portal has integrated Google Maps smart search capability, which provides an enhanced search experience. The On Demand portal allows customers to request a new port at any building that is connected to the Colt fibre network in On Demand enabled cities. On Demand services are now supported in 95% of Colt connected (onnet) buildings.
Where an address cannot be found, the manual search option should be used.
For further details on the ordering journey, please refer to the Ports section.
Colt building types
There are three different types of onnet building:
The below logos are used to identify the building type.
Data centres
On Demand services can be delivered to carrier neutral data centres as well as non-neutral and private data centres.
In data centres, On Demand services are usually delivered via Meet Me Rooms (MMRs) which are shared areas that can be accessed via a cross connect by any customer present in the data centre.
Larger data centres typically have multiple Meet Me Rooms and Colt often has a presence in more than one MMR. The On Demand portal allows customers to choose a default shared location – this option should be selected if a real time delivery is required.
Customers can also choose a specific MMR, but this option is only recommended for customers who have specific routing requirements (e.g. resilience/diversity from another service).
Services are usually handed over via a cross connect supplied by the data centre operator. The cross connect can either be ordered directly by the end customer, or via the On Demand portal (larger data centres only).
This is illustrated below:
Enterprise buildings
On Demand services can also be delivered to enterprise buildings.
An enterprise building typically consists of multiple floors and Colt delivers services to customers via private PoP sites which are often located in a comms room. An enterprise building typically has separate PoPs on different floors to serve the different customers based within the building.
This concept is illustrated below:
On Demand services can be delivered to existing customer PoP sites or new PoP sites. Visibility of customer PoP sites is restricted to sites where customers have existing services.
Where a PoP site is not visible in the On Demand portal, a new PoP site should be requested.
Nearnet buildings
Fibre connectivity to off-net buildings that are less than 250 metres from the Colt fibre network can also be requested via the On Demand portal.
Customers can request an On Demand service to a nearnet location by selecting the “address searched for (offnet)” check box.
Please note that the On Demand portal will display the full dig cost by default. For Details on the latest nearnet promotion, please contact the Colt sales team.
Supported scenarios
The supported customer scenarios are shown below:
| On-net data centre | Customer’s rack location is in a different location to the Colt CEA | Default solution: Customer requests an OD port at the existing CEA site, and orders a cross connect from the DC operator or Colt to reach their site location Alternative solution: Customer requests an OD port at a private site in the data centre. This is only supported where a CEA is not present (e.g. the DC operator does not support an MMR) |
| On-net enterprise building | Customer needs to deliver to an existing site (e.g. the 1st floor comms room) in a company HQ | Request new On Demand port at 1st floor site and arrange cabling |
| On-net enterprise building | Customer needs to deliver to a new location (e.g. 2nd floor comms room) in a company HQ | Request new On Demand site location on 2nd floor via OD portal. Colt will build new network location on 2nd floor |
| Offnet enterprise building or data centre | Customer needs to connect to offnet building that is less than 250m from the Colt fibre network | Speak to account team, and raise a nearnet building request via OD portal |
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