Colocation Data Centre Services
Move your hardware into our owned and operated UK data centres at Cole Valley and Fareham. Mission-critical facilities that exceed Tier III, with concurrently maintainable power, cooling and connectivity. You keep control of the platform. We run the building.
Why it matters
Most enterprise IT estates still run a meaningful share of workloads on physical infrastructure that cannot move to public cloud. Some are regulated. Some carry latency or sovereignty constraints. Some are licensed in ways that make cloud uneconomic. Some are simply too tightly coupled to existing operations to migrate without disproportionate cost. The workloads are not going anywhere soon, but the facility hosting them often should.
Running your own data centre is a quietly expensive habit. Power and cooling costs have risen sharply and continue to climb. Energy efficiency commitments add reporting overhead. Physical security obligations grow as threat profiles change. Skilled data centre engineers are harder to recruit and harder to retain, particularly outside the major hubs. Facilities reach end-of-life on different cycles to the technology they house, forcing capex decisions on floor space and plant long before the IT estate is ready. Gartner estimates that 80% of enterprises will close their traditional data centres by 2025 in favour of more agile arrangements such as colocation.
Cloud-only is rarely the answer either. For most organisations the realistic outcome over the next five years is a hybrid estate where some workloads run in public cloud, some in private cloud and some on physical infrastructure under your own control. The question is where that physical infrastructure should live, and who should run the building it sits in.
SCC colocation moves your hardware into our UK data centres without changing ownership of the equipment, the operating system or the application stack. You keep the platform decisions. We provide the power, cooling, fire suppression, physical security, environmental monitoring, structured cabling, carrier access and 24/7 facility operations. We are not a property company. We are Europe’s largest independent IT company, with more than 50 years of building relationships with the world’s largest technology providers, supporting global service integrators, UK public sector and commercial organisations. The service is modular, with simple terms, flexible contracts and adaptable commercial models, so it can scale alongside your business and bridge to cloud migration when that is the right next step.
How it works
Step 1
Site assessment and design
We start with the workloads, not the building. Power draw, density profile, network requirements, compliance obligations and growth trajectory drive the rack, suite and connectivity design. Cole Valley or Fareham is recommended based on geography, regulatory needs, density and connectivity profile. Outputs include a costed migration approach and a clear view of where your current architecture will need adjustment.
Step 2
Migration planning and risk control
Migrating live infrastructure carries operational risk that has to be managed sequentially. We plan the move in waves aligned to application dependencies, change windows and recovery testing. Migration runs alongside your existing operation so the business does not feel the transition. For mission-critical and CNI environments we operate parallel running until acceptance is signed off.
Step 3
Physical migration and installation
SCC engineers de-rack, transport, install and re-cable equipment into the target facility. Asset tagging, structured cabling and labelling are completed against your standards, with an audit trail you can hand to internal compliance. Bespoke racks have short lead times.
Step 4
Service activation and acceptance testing
Power, network and environmental monitoring are activated and verified. A and B power feeds are delivered to rack with in-rack STS units for single-corded devices. Connectivity is proven against agreed performance criteria. You sign off the environment against acceptance criteria before live workloads run on it.
Step 5
Operate, optimise and evolve
Once live, the service runs to defined SLAs with monthly reporting, capacity reviews and a named service manager. Modular design lets you add capacity, retire kit, integrate managed services or plan phased cloud migration without renegotiating the contract.
Awards and accreditations
We hold accreditations that translate into real client value: stronger audit positions, faster procurement and clearer assurance for regulated buyers.
ISO 27001 (Information Security Management)
Independent assurance that information security controls across the facilities, processes and people meet international standards. Reduces audit overhead for regulated clients running workloads in our environments.
ISO 20000 (IT Service Management)
Documented service management processes verified against an external standard. Translates into predictability and accountability for clients running mission-critical workloads in our facilities.
ISO 22301 (Business Continuity)
Datacentre management system aligned to a recognised business continuity standard. Demonstrates our operational ability to keep facilities running through disruption.
[FLAG TO SCC, confirm certification scope and reference.]
ISO 9001 (Quality Management)
Quality management system in place across our service delivery, change control and incident management. Reduces variance and supports clients with their own quality assurance obligations.
Carbon Net Zero by 2050 and UN Race to Zero
SCC has set Carbon Net Zero targets for 2050 and supports the UN Race to Zero campaign. Solar generation operates at Fareham, with a 737kW array being installed at Cole Valley. Translates into measurable contribution to your own ESG and Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting positions.
Stop running the building. Keep running the platform.
If your data centre lease is approaching renewal, your facility is reaching end of life, or your power and cooling envelope is running out, a colocation conversation is worth having now. We can review your current environment, model the cost and risk of staying versus moving and walk you through Cole Valley or Fareham in person.
FAQs
How is SCC colocation different from a property company that runs data centres?
We are not a property company. We are Europe’s largest independent IT company, with more than 50 years of building infrastructure for global service integrators, UK public sector and commercial organisations. Cole Valley and Fareham are owned and operated by SCC, run by SCC engineers, secured by SCC security teams and serviced by SCC operations. The colocation service can integrate directly with SCC managed infrastructure, network, backup and cyber security where you want a single accountability model. With a property-only operator, you still need separate IT partners. With SCC you do not.
Where are your data centres and why does the choice of site matter?
Cole Valley in Birmingham gives you central UK location with excellent transport links to the M6, M40 and Birmingham Airport. Capacity is up to 1,200 racks supplied with 8MVA via the National Grid HV Ring. Fareham, between Portsmouth and Southampton, gives you Hampshire siting with 50,000 ft² of capacity, dual 10MW supply from diverse grid locations and an hour from London. Both sites are diversely connected via FluidOne with 2Gb of spare inter-site capacity, so two-site architectures across the pair are well supported.
How resilient and concurrently maintainable are the facilities?
Both Cole Valley and Fareham exceed Tier III performance and availability specifications with concurrently maintainable power, cooling and data connectivity. Cole Valley operates minimum N+1 UPS (Red and Blue) and N+1 generators with refuelling contracts. Fareham operates minimum 2N UPS and N+2 concurrently maintainable generators. Cooling runs minimum N+1 chiller plant at Cole Valley and minimum 2N at Fareham, with free cooling used where ambient conditions allow.
What accreditations do you hold and what do they mean for our compliance position?
We hold ISO 27001 for information security, ISO 20000 for IT service management, ISO 22301 for datacentre business continuity and ISO 9001 for quality management. Together these mean you can rely on documented controls across the facility, the operations and the service. For regulated buyers (financial services, public sector, utilities) this reduces supplier-due-diligence overhead and supports your own audit position.
How do you support our sustainability and net-zero reporting?
SCC has committed to Carbon Net Zero by 2050 and supports the UN Race to Zero campaign. Solar generation operates at Fareham, and a 737kW solar array is being installed at Cole Valley. Power is offered on metered usage so you can report actual consumption rather than allocated capacity. Free cooling is used where ambient conditions allow, and high-efficiency cooling design minimises power use. Reporting can be aligned to Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting requirements.