Digital Realty Trust, Bonnington House

Colo-X analysis

Bonnington House was the first Telecity data centre in London. It opened in 1999. As a result of its age, power per rack/metre is light (only 1kW/sq m) and the site is actually pretty small at 10,000 sq ft or 1MW of customer power. However, network choice is strong for such as small site as it was one of the first alternatives to Telehouse available at the peak of the dotcom boom. It is also a LINX site.

In 2016, as part of the agreement with the European Commission to allow the acquisition of Telecity to proceed, Bonnnington House was sold by Equinix. It was acquired by Digital Realty Trust (DRT) along with four other London data centres. DRT ahave launched major expansion of Bonnington House, which is now known as Cloud House with up to 25,000 sq ft of net technical capacity, or an additional 4MW of customer power, with the first phase opening in summer of 2020.  This additional capacity will offer access to the established network hubs in the former Bonnington House, which has now be renamed as Cloud House West. In 2019 DRT have also launched a “campus cross-connect model” between all four of their Docklands data centres.

Facility description

Bonnington House was one of the first genuine carrier-neutral colocation facilities in London – and one of the first alternative sites to Telehouse (which was effectively sold out at the time). It therefore quickly filled up with various telecommunications companies, carriers and was also one of the first LINX nodes outside of Telehouse. Connectivity was also quickly boosted by the opening of the larger London Hosting Centre at the end of nearby Millharbour (see separate Colo-X entry here), which helped pull carriers down the road.

The original building is a small low-rise office building (four stories), so the data centre environment is cramped by modern standards and light on power. The 1,858 sq m of gross space only offers some 10,000 sq ft/1,000 sq m of net technical capacity at 1kW/sq m over five data halls. It has limited vacant space as the existing customers have tended to stay put for a very long time, and numerous legacy interconnects that would be difficult (and expensive) to move today.

The future for Bonnington House under the ownership of Digital Realty Trust (DRT) since spring 2016 should be interesting. DRT have announced plans to significantly expand the site by some 25,000 sq ft of net technical capacity or 4MW, so a significant increase on its original size. This new capacity is due to start coming online in the summer of 2020 with the first hall of 800kW live. DRT have decided to rename Bonnington House as Cloud House West.

The campus-cross-connect model now makes connecting between all four of the DRT Docklands facilites much easier.

Technical stats