Datum: FRN2 Data center

The FRN2 facility, located on the existing campus of Datum Datacentres’ Farnborough site (adjacent to its FRN1 facility in Farnborough, Hampshire, UK), is the company’s next-stage build aimed at meeting rising demand for high-density, enterprise-grade colocation. Designed to complement the company’s flagship FRN1, it sits in a strategic south-east UK position with excellent fibre and transport connectivity. The build emphasises sustainability, scalability and high resilience — differentiating it in the crowded London-and-South-East colocation market.

⚙️ Facility Highlights

• Tier / Redundancy: FRN2 is built to Tier 3+ / availability class 3 (BS EN 50600) standards, with full redundancy in active systems and 2N/2N+1 design elements. 
• Power & Cooling: The facility is designed to support high-density computing — average rack footprints are specified at ~3.5 kW, with capability up to ~30 kW per rack. 
• Cooling strategies include indirect free-cooling to the data halls and direct free-air cooling to plant spaces to achieve high efficiency. 
• Energy Efficiency & Sustainability: The design target for FRN2 is a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of better than 1.2 at full load — a leading figure for data centres in the region.
• Scalability: Phase one of the build is planned to deliver ~600–1,200 rack footprints initially, with the capacity to double in later phases. 
• Support Services: Customers benefit from Datum’s 24×7 on-site operations and remote-hands service, integrated with its network services and cloud/colocation ecosystem.

🔐 Security & Compliance

• Access & Monitoring: The facility implements multi-layer access controls, man-traps, biometric or card access, perimeter surveillance and CCTV 24×7. (While specific public detail is limited for FRN2, these align with Datum’s FRN1 and London & South East technical standards.) 
• Certifications: The site is designed in accordance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 and ISO 50001 standards. 
• Fire & Safety Systems: Planned systems include early smoke detection, high-availability suppression systems, separate mechanical/electrical plant rooms and redundant infrastructure pathways.

🌐 Connectivity & Carrier Access

• Carrier-Neutral: As part of Datum’s network, FRN2 will support multiple network providers, dark-fibre paths and interconnection options, enabling flexible and resilient connectivity for colocation customers. 
• Regional Connectivity Advantage: Situated in Farnborough within the London & South East corridor, the location provides low-latency access into London, the M25 and major metropolitan business hubs while avoiding some of the cost and risk associated with central London sites.
• Designed for Hybrid/Cloud Use: The specification enables higher densities and direct on-ramp capabilities for cloud and edge deployments thanks to the facility’s network infrastructure and footprint design.

💼 Who It Serves

• Enterprises requiring high-availability, carrier-neutral colocation with strong sustainability credentials.
• Cloud and SaaS providers looking for scalable high-density compute deployments in the south-east UK region.
• Regulated industries (finance, defence, engineering) needing robust physical and logical security, plus high-performance infrastructure.
• Businesses with hybrid IT needs seeking to colocate on-premises hardware with cloud connectivity in the same footprint and network environment.