South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue strengthens critical 999 service resilience
Delivering reliable, energy-efficient infrastructure for frontline emergency response.
The contract with SCC makes South Yorkshire safer and stronger, and makes sure that we can mobilise our 999 facility all year round.
Steve Locking, Head of ICT, Digital and Data, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
Summary
South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (SYFR) partnered with SCC to modernise and optimise its data centre infrastructure, ensuring the resilience of critical systems that underpin its 999 emergency response service. Following failures in legacy cooling systems and rising energy costs, SCC designed and delivered a comprehensive upgrade to the organisation’s cooling and power infrastructure.
Through a carefully planned and risk-managed implementation, SCC transformed the reliability, efficiency and visibility of SYFR’s data centre environment. We delivered significant reductions in energy consumption, operational costs and carbon emissions, while enabling continuous service delivery to approximately 2.5 million residents across South Yorkshire.
As Steve Locking, Head of ICT, Digital and Data, explains: “It helps save lives. Without the systems working effectively, we can’t mobilise and get to the public and respond effectively.”
Challenge
SYFR relies on its Sheffield-based data centre to power its mobilising system, which enables the rapid deployment of emergency services across South Yorkshire. The data centre hosts all the technology responsible for delivering the mobilising system and is key to making sure that fire engines arrive within 7 minutes of a very high risk incident call out.
However, critical infrastructure within the data centre had become outdated and no longer fit for purpose. The cooling and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, installed when the building opened in 2008, had reached end of life and posed a growing operational risk.
This risk became a reality during the summer months, when cooling failures caused the server room temperature to exceed safe limits, resulting in system shutdowns and back up solutions quickly needed to be implemented. Without reliable cooling, core systems could fail, preventing SYFR from responding to emergencies. During hot, arid conditions the fire service typically is under increased strain and 999 callouts due to the propensity of moorland fire incidents the service has to respond to.
Alongside resilience concerns, SYFR faced inefficient infrastructure and operational pressures. Legacy UPS systems were oversized and their consumption of energy was vastly beyond their needs, while poor airflow of the cooling systems design further increased power usage. At the same time, the IT team faced ongoing operational strain, needing to manually monitor server room conditions during warm weather due to a lack of confidence in the cooling system.
Critically, any transformation needed to be delivered without disrupting the 24/7 emergency service, as any loss of power during the upgrade would directly impact SYFR’s ability to mobilise emergency response teams, creating an unacceptable risk to public safety. Maintaining continuous operation of the live environment throughout the infrastructure upgrade was therefore a non-negotiable requirement.
Solution
SCC worked closely with SYFR to design and deliver a fully optimised data centre environment, beginning with a detailed on-site assessment of the server room, reviewing the infrastructure, airflow and energy usage.
This analysis identified fundamental design flaws in the existing environment, enabling SCC to develop a tailored solution aligned to modern data standards and SYFR’s operational requirements.
End-to-end infrastructure transformation
SCC delivered a complete upgrade of SYFR’s critical infrastructure, including:
- Replacement of legacy UPS systems with class leading 2N, high availability, highly efficient, modular redundant UPS.
- Introduction of redesigned cooling architecture utilising a class leading resilient cooling system using high efficiency cooling technologies feeding into a cold aisle contained racking system.
- Reconfiguration of power distribution to eliminate single points of failure.
- Implementation of advanced monitoring and telemetry tools.
Resilience-led architecture
To ensure uninterrupted service delivery, SCC embedded resilience throughout the solution. A dual power supply architecture (A/B feeds) was implemented across critical systems, with full separation of power and cooling pathways to eliminate cascading failures whilst provisioning for concurrent operational maintenance without downtime. During implementation, SCC also deployed a temporary UPS solution, ensuring that the transition could be completed with no service disruption.
Risk-managed implementation
SCC developed a detailed project plan and worked in close collaboration with SYFR teams, holding weekly progress reviews to ensure delivery stayed on track. The transformation was delivered over an eight-month programme, carefully planned to avoid peak summer risk periods and ensure continuity of service.
The use of a temporary UPS over several months formed a core part of this risk mitigation strategy, enabling phased implementation and testing without exposing the live environment to instability or interruption. This approach removed a major barrier to change, allowing SYFR to modernise critical infrastructure without compromising operational readiness.
Enhanced visibility and control
SCC introduced monitoring dashboards and sensors that provide real-time insight into power usage, temperature and environmental conditions across the data centre. This includes detailed visibility of UPS, cooling and socket-level energy consumption, supported by thermal imaging analysis to optimise airflow and performance. Early warning systems for smoke and environmental risks were also implemented, helping to further strengthen operational resilience
Ongoing managed support
In addition to delivering the infrastructure transformation, SCC provides ongoing support and maintenance for the UPS and cooling environment. This ensures that any issues can be rapidly addressed, with access to specialist engineers when required, helping SYFR maintain continuous service availability.
This managed support model provides additional assurance that critical systems remain fully operational, reinforcing the long-term resilience of the 999 service while allowing the internal IT team to focus on strategic priorities.
SCC put a lot of thought into it, to make sure that all the different elements, when we were changing them, had minimal downtime or none, just to reduce any potential for service issues. And I can gladly say that we didn’t have any issues during the transition.
Steve Locking, Head of ICT, Digital and Data, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
Outcomes
SCC’s end-to-end transformation delivered measurable improvements across resilience, efficiency, sustainability and operational effectiveness.
Speak to a specialist
Email-borne threats are evolving faster than rule-based defences can follow. Our specialists will assess your current environment and show where behavioural AI closes the gaps. A practical conversation, no obligation.
