Datum MCR1 (former Teledata), South Manchester Data Centre

Colo-X analysis

Datum MCR1 was originally opened as Teledata until acquired by Datum in September 2022. Teledata had established a small data centre in a mixed use building in Wythenshawe, South Manchester since 2007 and developed a strong niche as a flexible colocation provider, ideal at looking after smaller users. Since the Datum acquisition they are now building MCR2, a brand new and significantly larger 4MW data centre adjacent to MCR1.

Over time the campus has become an established network ecosystem, especially since LINX (London Internet Exchange) opened their 4^th Manchester site here in early 2021 and the direct carrier count is now 19 networks.

Besides offering geographic diversity to all the other Manchester data centres, Datum MCR1 also offers a very different choice for colocation users to the large global or national operators who now control the other Manchester sites.

As with their Farnborough site, Datum are particularly well suited to smaller retail rack customers, who are also attracted by attractive commercial terms and no recurring cross-connect fees, a rare feature for a network hub data centre.

With significant new capacity to come in early 2025 with the new Datum MCR2 building next door, this site looks set to see continued growth.

Datum MCR1, Delta House, South Manchester facility description

Formerly a regional office for oil major Shell, Teledata’s Delta House is located 1okm to the south of central Manchester and only 2km from Manchester Airport in the suburb of Wythenshaw. The fully owned and operated facility is a mixed use 70,000 sq ft 1960’s office building with around 10,000 sq ft currently built out on the ground floor as dedicated colocation space, supporting around 400 racks, though expanding all the time. The size of the building provides ample scope for expansion of data centre capacity as well as ability to offer a combination of colocation and office accomodation to customers when requred.

At 400 racks capacity the focus is very much on retail colocation customers taking 1-2 racks, part racks (quarter and half) and the largest customer is around 50 racks or 250kW, but the operator is now poised to deliver a further 1000 racks in an adjoining building as a completely new facility, from early 2025.

Power densities are from 2kW to 4 or 5kw as standard per full rack. For power provision the building is supplied from its own 11kV sub-station and power to the rack backed up by 2(N+N) UPS and generators. A 100% SLA on power is offered. Cooling by N+1 CRAC units. FM200 fire suppression.

The site is also ideal for Disaster Recovery (DR) services and also supports a wide variety of office tenants over the six upper floors including law firms, healthcare and of course IT/hosting companies taking advantage of both office and data centre under one roof together with overall site security.

Having opened for data centre use in 2007 the carrier list is now 19 networks including fibre from Zayo, EuNetworks, BT, Hibernia Atlantic (now GTT), Level3 (now Lumen), SSE, Vodafone(C+W) and VirginMedia as well as a host of smaller ISPs and networks, not forgetting LINX with some 15 ports now active here (out of some 140 across the whole of Manchester). The height of the building makes it ideal for wireless network operators with clear line of sight to central Manchester. As a result Datum MCR1 has a growing role as an “edge” data centre.

Datum MCR1 offers ISO9001, 27001 and PCI DSS accreditations.

The location will see significant new capacity in early 2025 as Datum MCR2 opens next door which is designed to offer a purpose built, ultra low PUE data centre of 1000 racks or 4MW.

Technical stats