CoreSite recently completed a complex infrastructure upgrade of its LA1 data center at One Wilshire®, the iconic carrier hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The project, which propels the facility into the 21st century, showcases CoreSite’s ability to take on challenges to ensure our customers continue to have best-in-class uptime and the access to digital ecosystems needed to thrive and grow their business – without interrupting their services.
A Legendary Hub for the Digital World
Once simply a traditional office building in the heart of downtown L.A., One Wilshire is now considered by many the top carrier hotel in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most interconnected buildings in the world. Hosting the landing points of multiple subsea cables, One Wilshire is also known as the digital gateway from North America to the Asia-Pacific region; as much as one-third of all trans-Pacific internet traffic is estimated to pass through the LA1 Meet-Me-Room.
LA1 is housed within One Wilshire, providing some of the world’s largest and most influential companies with robust, low-latency connectivity to 330+ networks, including global carriers, metro networks and software-defined networks. LA1 also offers direct onramps to all major public cloud providers, and peering exchanges including the Any2Exchange® for Internet peering and BBIX for global peering.
In addition, LA1 features dark fiber tethering to CoreSite’s LA2 and LA3 data centers, establishing a connected data center campus supporting a range of workloads, including AI, that demand high performance, scalability and high-density power. Of course, that interconnection extends across all CoreSite data centers as well.
Building on the One Wilshire Legacy
Built in 1966, One Wilshire has a rich service history. Having been a cornerstone of the digital ecosystem for so long, the facility was due for an electrical system upgrade to enable CoreSite to continue delivering world-class data center infrastructure and operations via LA1. We decided to make a series of improvements to the electrical distribution system, understanding that this would be a complex, lengthy project with long-term implications.
The primary objective of the upgrade was to eliminate single points of failure by replacing aging infrastructure and enhancing redundancy. To this end, the project included replacing the legacy N generator system with an enterprise-class N+1 generator plant. Adding this redundancy was critical to assuring LA1 uptime in the event of a utility outage, when utility power is not available, as well as during maintenance or when the data center’s UPSs are put on bypass.
In addition, we increased the facility’s diesel fuel capacity, adding belly tanks to the generators so that each one can run for at least 24 hours at full load. For further redundancy, we installed a means to transfer fuel between the tanks in the event of a generator failure.
We also replaced the aging automatic transfer switch (ATS) that serves the associated LA1 electrical riser with a new ATS that features an internal bypass. Furthermore, we added an external bypass path to ensure power availability in the event of a catastrophic ATS failure. We also reconfigured primary and redundant sources of other ATSs to facilitate failover to alternate risers.
Finally, we took the opportunity to inspect, clean and perform maintenance on the electrical riser and all associated electrical components to secure top performance. Overall, the project was a monumental undertaking that I am proud to say was executed flawlessly by the CoreSite team.
Winning as a Team and With Partners
CoreSite was facing a complex and challenging infrastructure upgrade, but it was necessary to future-proof LA1 for our customers, and we do not shy away from ventures that other companies might deem overwhelming or too risky.
One of the most notable aspects of the project is that we achieved the upgrades while maintaining uninterrupted 24x7 operation of all customer deployments throughout the project. We literally took out one of the data center’s “life support” systems and kept the facility running the entire time. The CoreSite team accomplished this by installing and maintaining a temporary, yet fully commissioned, N+1 generator plant with a parallel distribution board in the parking lot adjacent to the building – while we replaced the site generators, ATS, switchgear and associated components.
We encountered another challenge when moving the generators and electrical infrastructure into the building. Due to the physical size of the equipment – the ATS is the size of a large SUV, the generators are larger than an 18-wheeler, and we only had a few inches of clearance on either side. Despite the tight squeeze, the equipment was installed without any problem.
The success of this initiative – just like CoreSite’s leadership position in the industry – comes down to the CoreSite people, always going above and beyond to get the job done. Our dedicated and highly skilled team worked round-the-clock to reduce the project duration and minimize risks.
However, I will add that we could not have completed this project alone. A team of contractors, true partners who cared about the mission as much as we did, made success possible. The contractors and vendors on the job included IT Services Group for project management; Taft Electric Company as primary contractor; KW Mission Critical Engineering, Member of WSP for design engineering; and Hood Patterson & Dewar as commissioning agent. We thank them all for their hard work and support.
Taking on the Tough Jobs
The upgrade of LA1 at One Wilshire exemplifies CoreSite’s commitment to tackling formidable challenges without hesitation and delivering robust and resilient data center operations. What I’m most proud of is that, despite the high risk and sensitive environment, we were able to maintain 100% uptime for all our clients. When you’re working on one of the world’s most interconnected buildings and there isn’t a single negative impact to customer service – that’s really satisfying.
What this means for CoreSite customers is that you can trust us to take care of daily data center operations and solve what might seem to be insurmountable problems. The care we put into the LA1 upgrade project demonstrates how much effort we invest in keeping your IT infrastructure up and running to ensure your business continuity.
The LA1 upgrade also highlights the continuous progress of IT toward greater capability, speed, scalability – and the unrelenting demand for upgrades such as more compute, capacity, space, power and cooling. This is the state of data center operations today, and it is only going to become more demanding. As someone with deep industry experience, I think the LA1 improvements project certifies that CoreSite is a company with the capability, confidence and determination to get the job done every day.
Know More
Check out this video to see the CoreSite team in action, get a look inside One Wilshire and the LA1 data center, and learn more about the project.
Of course, we are always ready to discuss your business and infrastructure objectives.
Contact Us to get the conversation rolling!