The UK’s Janet education network is planning a shared data center for Northern universities, following the success of a shared facility in Slough supporting universtites and other research organizations.

Jisc, the body that provides Janet, already has five anchor tenants, and has issued a tender for a new shared data center, to support research bodies in the North of the UK. This follows the successful opening of a shared data center in Slough, in the Infinity SDC data center which was sold to Virtus last week.

By coincidence, the Janet network is experiencing difficulties today, from a denial of service (DoS) attack. 

science research jisc janet
– Thinkstock / Fuse

Applications invited

Prospective suppliers have until 21st December to apply, according to the tender, which was published on the JISC Opportunities Portal on 24 November, and spotted by Computer Weekly, which reports there are seven separate parts to the tender including systems, servers and infrastructure.

Jisc hopes to set up the data center by the end of June 2016, and the contract will run for an initial five years. It could be extended if needed for periods of ten years. Anchor tenants wanting to move in include the Universities of Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam, as well as the N8 Research Partnership.

The Slough center has been established for a year, and has 14 tenans. The anchor tenants include three London universities - University College, King’s College and Queen Mary - and the Francis Crick Institute and Wellcome Sanger Institute. Tenants signed since it opened include the University of Surrey and Brunel University. Liverpool City College is also in the Slough site, but presumably could move North when the second shared data center opens.

The Slough shared data center currently has 130 racks and 1.5MW of power. 

DDoS attack

This week, meanwhile, the Janet network has been affected by a targetted distributed denial of service attack which ”resulted in reduced connectivity and disruption for all Janet customers,” according to a statement. Blocks and filters have been put in place, and the jisc.ac.uk website was closed as this received its own targetted DDoS attack. 

“We understand the importance of connectivity to colleges, universities and other public sector organisations. We are doing everything in our power to ensure normal service in resumed as soon as possible, and in the meantime to minimise any disruption that users of the Janet network may be experiencing,” said Jim Kidd, executive director of Jisc Technologies.