Digital Realty Trust, Sovereign House

Colo-X analysis

Telecity Sovereign House was essentially the flagship facility for Redbus and then Telecity following the merger in 2005, at least prior to the opening of Powergate in early 2009. At 50,000 sq ft of net technical capacity, SOV is the largest of the three original Redbus sites in the Docklands.

The site quality is good, occupancy as with all other Docklands facilities remains high, and network access is excellent. Indeed SOV is the 4th best network ecosystem in London according to Colo-X research. Capacity is the most likely limiting factor at present – power per cabinet is limited compared to more modern sites, but this is a common across all the older Docklands facilities. Colo-X has closed deals in this facility for carriers and ISPs alike.

In 2016 SOV was sold by Equinix as part of the agreement with the European Commission to allow the acquisition of Telecity to proceed. Along with four other London data centres it was acquired by Digital Realty Trust.

Digital Realty Trust, Sovereign House facility description

The site comprises five floors of data centre, in a shell originally designed for office use as a self-contained building that went live in 2001. Since becoming part of Telecity (following the merger in Q4 2005), the fifth floor of 1,000 sq m (approx. 10,000 sq ft) was fitted out to a slightly better specification than the original fit-out; it can now run up to 2kW per cabinet.

Because of its age and Docklands location, network choice rather than power per cabinet is this site’s main attraction.

Technical stats