Litchfield

This project was completed to BS6079 standards. It involved the complete project life-cycle move of the Bank’s European data centre, including contract negotiations. The Centre had to be moved from Hammersmith due to re-development of the original site. This also required the support team JAIS to be re-located to the same area and the creation of two new disaster recovery sites.

The search commenced for a highly secure centre for the Bank and after several alternatives were discarded the technical choice of Keybridge House was made. Keybridge was the international call hub of BT (British Telecom) and had been built to exacting standards. The generators came in on 3 ships and each was the size of a small detached house. The bulk tank for diesel had a capacity of 250,000 gallons, the UPS was 50 metres across and the building was surrounded by a flood wall and gates up to the height of 2.5 metres.

The Project required the design and construction of the data centre, implementation and testing of the new networks and applications.

The project was divided into several parts co-ordinated by a TRM, a task responsibility matrix and performance criteria for each member of the team. The main internal email system was Lotus notes and an early type of intranet was utilized to keep all members of the Project team in the loop as to the progress and developments on a day to day basis.

The support team was found premises nearby and the projects progressed and were co-ordinated and managed by Litchfield. The works also included data migration between the centres, project managing the move of the equipment and training of staff. The project was undertaken in both the UK and Japan and the testing involved a structure of testing of lines and networks involving six overseas locations.

The project proved a great success and one that we are still proud of.