FEATURE
I’VE BEEN ABLE
TO DO THINGS I
WOULDN’T HAVE
HAD ACCESS
TO IN A LOT OF
COMPANIES,
EITHER WITHIN
OR OUTSIDE OF
THIS INDUSTRY.
Speaking of the recruitment process, they
explained that the company arranged a
visit to DCW London 2019 prior to the
selection day. This was an opportunity to
learn more about the industry, including
meeting manufacturers and industry
consultants. Prior to starting their
internships, they also had the opportunity
to attend factory assessment testing and a
unique training experience with immersed
cooling manufacturer, Asperitas.
All of the graduates recognise what a
unique opportunity they had experiencing
the final phases of construction. In
addition to a range of CPD courses to
bring them up to speed with health and
safety and other issues, they benefitted
from manufacturer training covering
UPSs and free-cooling chillers, along
with different types of cooling solutions.
This took place alongside supplier
training concerning the installed leak,
fire detection and building management
systems (BMS).
Reflecting on the internship, they
described it as both insightful and not
what they anticipated based on friends’
experiences in other data centres or
other industries.
“I expected to be pigeonholed in our own
areas and not do anything other than fix
servers or look at a computer,” said Green.
“We were doing real things, designing real
processes. For example, none of us knew
what IST was, but within two months we
were project planning and executing IST
with supervision,” said Willis.
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Issue 13
“I never expected it to be so real, so soon,”
said Hussain. example, I sat down with Aminah and said,
‘I need to know these things’.”
“To have the authority to be planning
things around the plant room and
procedures. Here, there’s not a gap
between the facilities and IT that you
get in some places. In everything we did,
we all sat down together – bringing our
different disciplines together – to work
things out between us . . . that helps us
to move forward faster,” said Willis. “For “I had no idea what transducers to pick for
the mechanical, I had no idea what half
the mechanical is, so it was like ‘Rebecca,
what’s this?’ You get the answer straight
away,” said Hussain.
Towards the end of his internship, Green
completed CNet’s CNCI training. He came
back from this with improved confidence
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