Visiting MSK-IX. Kurchatov data center

In early December, I was able to descend from the Ural Mountains, take a plane and go in the direction of Moscow to visit MSK-IX . The plans were to visit one of the company's first data centers, located on the territory of the Kurchatov Institute, as well as to visit the brand-new data center in the cult building for telecommunications operators MMTS-9. I ask under the cat, those who want to look from the inside at the data center, which is directly related to the history of the Runet.

MSK-IX has its history since 1995, when representatives of six providers agreed to create a point of mutual exchange of IP traffic to unite the Russian Internet segment. A few weeks later, at the telephone station M9 on Butlerova Street, the first Moscow Internet eXchange switchboard started working. And now, after more than twenty years, MSK-IX is the largest peer-to-peer network in Russia, providing a neutral Internet eXchange platform for exchanging IP traffic between networks and a global distributed network of DNS servers to support root-domain zones. The list of participants includes more than 500 companies - these are telecom operators, social networks, search engines, video portals, cloud service providers, corporate and scientific and educational networks.



The office of the “provider for providers” is quite a cozy and nice room. It employs a relatively small part of the MSK-IX staff, since most of them are focused on infrastructure facilities.







One of the first nodes MSK-IX is located on the territory of the Institute of Atomic Energy. I. V. Kurchatov , in a building that has a truly historical significance for the world information web segment, which is now called Russian.

It was here in 1990 that several researchers of the institute founded the Relcom company, under the patronage of which the first Russian computer network between scientific institutions of Moscow, Leningrad and Novosibirsk was later organized. A little later, it was here that the first foreign connection to a computer in the University of Helsinki took place. In the same year, Relcom registered for the USSR a top-level domain .su .

Relcom still lives and thrives in this building, providing here, in its own data center, services for the placement of server racks. MSK-IX is their nearest neighbor, whose data center is located in the next room.

The Kurchatov Institute has the status of a regime object, so to get here you need to have a pass or get permission to issue a temporary one. And after going through a small face control at the local security. All in the classic Soviet spirit factory passages.
With security in Kurchatnik, as the guys from MSK-IX affectionately call it, everything is in order. A three-tier access control system is organized here, which is the main requirement for data center licensing. Even the elevators in the building where the data centers are located are equipped with electronic locks, and without a special key it is impossible to get to the floor you need, not to mention admitting directly to the data center room.

The data center is a spacious hall, on the square of which telecommunication racks are lined up in even rows. Along the walls there are air conditioners that maintain the indoor temperature at + 20-25 degrees.







The heat released by the equipment enters the air conditioners, passes through a cooling sieve and is fed back to the equipment from the bottom. The capacity of local air conditioners is enough to provide the Kurchatov Institute unit with cold air.

Clients here are provided with a wide range of services: Internet, colocation and telecommunication cabinets for rent. There is one large customer in the data center who rents a lot of cabinets. For it is allocated a separate section. Customers renting one rack are concentrated in another part of the data center premises.









There are many famous companies in Kurchatnik. For example, from the “bearded nineties” here stands the F-Root DNS root server rack. These servers store information about the highest level of domain zones. MSK-IX employees do not maintain these racks. This work is carried out remotely by their Western colleagues. The presence of such a serious site here is the best proof of the reliability of the data center.





Four cabinets are leased by the Internet Technical Center , which serves the Main Registry and the domain registration system .RU, .РФ, .SU, .ДЕТ, .TATAR. Also, TCI provides uninterrupted operation of the domain addressing of the Russian segment of the Internet on the global network. One of the leased racks stores information on all Russian domains. Her "mirror" is located in the data center in St. Petersburg. This is done to ensure continuous availability for data backup.







The crown of this entire telecommunications landscape is one of the cores of the MSK-IX. The second is on the M-9, which provides full redundancy of the operator’s network. Clients that are connected to the infrastructure MSK-IX, come here and on the "nine". If something happens on one of the nodes, the other takes over the work.





The system operates on the principle of “dual core”. This traffic comes from all nodes where MSK-IX clients are connected. This ensures their continuous and uninterrupted performance. Each client node is included in both cores, which ensures the reliability of all MSK-IX sites. Considering the fact that MSK-IX is present in 16 data centers of the capital, communication lines from all over Moscow come here.



Freon is the main component of the fire extinguishing system. However, the gas is not safe for people, so the system will work only if there are no people in the server room.







If there are no people in the room, the fire station sends a signal to the first cartridge, after which the gas supply to the system begins.





"Kurchatnik" does not fall under the category of Tier III due to the lack of a diesel power plant near the data center, which requires international certification. At one time, his diesel generator was simply not allowed to be put on the territory of the Kurchatov Institute. But the reliability of power supply here says the very location of the object. Kurchatov Institute has the status of a defense facility, so the reliability of electricity supply is of paramount importance here.

The power supply of Kurchatnik is provided by the CHP, from where high voltage goes to two transformers through special switchgears located on the territory of the institute. If suddenly the power is lost on one of the highways, then automatic switching to the second transformer takes place. and it has an ABP system (automatic reserve code). Themselves uninterruptible power supply at the time of the disappearance of electricity begin to work from the batteries, until the AVR. As a result, the consumer does not even feel the drops of electricity.

Batteries and several UPSs are located in the basement of the building. A whole power system has been formed there to prevent any problems with the power supply. Batteries are divided into several compartments. They are connected in series in several groups.







Due to the division into small rooms, air conditioners manage to maintain a favorable temperature for the operation of batteries, which have been living here for quite a long century, working for eight years.









Bespereboyniki and air conditioners are connected in parallel on two lines.





As already noted, in the event of an accident on one line, an automatic switch to the other takes place, which allows you to relieve electricity interruptions without serious consequences.







The work of the entire complex telecommunications system, thanks to modern means of monitoring, can be monitored by just a few employees. Monitoring allows you to quickly monitor the status of all systems in the data center. At the same time, the reading of some devices is still collected manually.





I want to say that, despite the considerable age of the data center, there is a modern equipment that works flawlessly. For all the years of work of “Kurchatnik”, a few number of accidents happened here, and those went unnoticed for MSK-IX customers.