Adding value, winning business with Server Factory

CERN is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, producing massive volumes of data to be stored, processed, distributed and analysed. This means it has stringent requirements for its computing infrastructure, including very high performance, reliability, power efficiency, cooling constraints, and long-term maintainability. CERN generates petabytes of data every year, requiring immense computing power, efficient storage systems, and high-performance servers to process, analyse, and share results globally.

UK-based Server Factory are a “value added reseller” – adding value is through a range of services including benchmarking, remote testing, bespoke or customised products and managing logistics. They specialise in B2B high performance computing and have been working with CERN since 2021, starting with a few small orders before successfully bidding for tenders, and now working on multiple projects. Overall they have provided 68TB storage JBODs deployed across CERN’s networks.

CERN have extensive requirements for data storage and high performance computing. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is CERN’s flagship accelerator and as the years pass, it is continually being tuned to provide ever-more data to the 4 large experiments around the LHC ring. From measuring the data to be stored and analysed in petabytes, it is now more in tens of petabytes. To cope with this increase in data, CERN built a second, modular, computer centre and it is into this dedicated centre that the Server Factory systems will be installed.

Any supplier providing servers must satisfy rigorous standards: procurement, qualification, testing, energy/power usage, integration with existing infrastructure (cooling, networking, storage), as well as compliance with international delivery & customs.

The competition to win orders for this service is tight. Firms are given targets of CPU power or storage capacity and must propose configurations which are energy-efficient in as few boxes as possible as both the energy needs and space requirements as well as the basic cost are taken into consideration in contract adjudication.

Tom Dowdle is Server Factory’s CEO. He says, “We have a really good relationship both with the technical teams and procurement. It took us a while to learn how the process worked, but the CERN staff were happy to help guide us. It really helped us to review our internal processes, and now everything runs smoothly.”

“Working with CERN has changed our processes – their requirements are very stringent and meeting these meant we needed to review how we worked, which has trickle-down benefits for all of our customers. Our benchmarking and audit trails are more robust and our Quality Assurance has approved across the board as servers go through the production process, minimising damage, and ensuring our import/export control is robust enough to meet CERN’s standards.”

In addition to direct revenue, working with CERN has helped build partnerships with vendors.