CITADEL100's Data Centre Industry News Roundup

CITADEL100, a member of the Keppel Group and one of Europe’s leading and most innovative Datacentre owner and operators specialising in designing, developing and operating 100% availability Next Generation Datacentres, announced that they have retained ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Certification in recognition of its management quality systems and processes for a sixth consecutive year.

This provides continued independent validation that CITADEL100’s Quality Management System meets the highest standard of quality demanded by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). With this announcement CITADEL100 continues to build on their on-going commitment to customers towards continual improvement, superior quality and service excellence within our Next Generation Datacentre.

The ISO 9001:2008 Certification for ‘Provision of a secure controlled environment for databases with guarantee of power supply’ followed a vigorous assessment of the Quality Management System in operation within the CITADEL100 Next Generation Datacentre environments.

CITADEL100 is at the forefront of developing the Industry leading processes and procedures required to robustly support the specialised environment of the Datacentre.

CITADEL100 provides the world’s leading blue chip enterprises with wholesale bespoke colocation and specialised Datacentre management services in colocation suites, dedicated Data Halls and fully bespoke Datacentres.

CITADEL100 enables enterprises in the regulated sectors (financial, pharmaceutical and government) and technology and content providers with the highest power density environments for all of their Business Continuity and mission-critical IT Operations supported by the highest industry Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Certification.

The Datacenter Dynamics Awards are the leading awards for the data center industry recognising innovation, leadership and ‘out of the box’ thinking. Last year the award, which was also sponsored by CITADEL100, was given to Cable & Wireless.
With 15 established award categories, the Awards celebrate data center projects of all sizes, across all sectors with many hundreds of worthy entries.
The DatacenterDynamics Awards has been often referred to as the ‘Oscars’ of the data center industry. The ceremony is a highlight of the data center calendar, celebrating the best in our industry.
Behind every cutting edge data center are a number of great ‘blueprint’ design and management ideas, and this Award sponsored by CITADEL100 is about recognising this new thinking that so often paves the way for the next generation of data centers. With the challenges confronting the industry now moving quicker and hitting harder than ever before, so the skills required in design, project management and construction need to raise the bar continually in terms of innovation, efficient resource use, future-proofing and delivery. Conceptual designs often never see the light of day in their entirety; nevertheless they are an important part of our industry’s evolution. Karl Hennessy, CITADEL’s C.E.O, will represent the company on the judging panel.

JUDGING CRITERIA AND WEIGHTINGS:
- The importance of the conceptualisation, design and construction challenges addressed by the blueprint [10%]
- Demonstrates innovative, ‘out of the box’ thinking to solve key challenges [30%]
- Demonstrable and validated success in meeting the challenges [40%]
- Relevance across wider industry builds [20%]

Keppel Data Centres Holding Pte Ltd (KDCH), a joint venture between Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation Ltd (Keppel T&T) and Keppel Land Limited, has today announced plans to develop its third data centre in Singapore with the completion of the acquisition of a light industrial building from Goodvine Pte Ltd.

Strategically located next to KDCH's existing data centre at Tampines, Keppel Datahub 1 (KDH1), this new data centre (KDH2) will be redeveloped into a high quality data centre facility delivering more than 6,000 sm of data centre space. KDH2 is also designed to deliver power density of more than 2kw per sm to its customers.

KDH2, which is expected to launch in early 2014, follows the completion of the Securus Gore Hill Data Centre in 2012, a development project jointly owned and managed by Securus Data Property Fund and Keppel Data Centres Pte Ltd in Sydney, Australia. Both companies also jointly own CITADEL100's 65,000 sq ft misiion critical Data centre located in Dublin Ireland.

With the inclusion of KDH2 and the portfolio of assets owned through Securus Data Property Fund and Keppel Data Centres, Keppel T&T will own and manage a combined portfolio of nine data centres with more than 46,450 sm of DC space.

Mr Pang Hee Hon, CEO of Keppel T&T said, "Our expansion is timely as it allows us to continue to tap into the robust data centre demand growth in Singapore. We have seen how global digitisation and growth of cloud computing drove the demand for data centres in US and Europe. Key cities in Asia, in particular Singapore are experiencing the same trend and the demand for high quality data centres remains unabated. Keppel is well-poised to leverage our strong data centre development and operational track record to cater to these development opportunities in Asia."

Mr Bruno Lopez, CEO of Keppel Data Centre, said, "KDH2, with its advantageous location will allow us to synergise and expand our operations, reaping greater economies of scale and operational efficiencies. Importantly, our existing clients will also enjoy these operational synergies as they expand with us.

As part of the development, KDH1 and KDH2 will be integrated to create a large-scale data centre complex comprising two Tier 3+ data centres. With Keppel's data centres in Singapore operating at close to full occupancy, KDH2 will allow Keppel T&T to to address the demand for high quality data centre colocation services in the high-growth Singapore market.

In line with Keppel's commitment to environmental sustainability, KDH2 will adopt innovative energy efficient designs in its implementation. The facility will be built to meet the BCA-IDA Green Mark for Data Centres Standard - the newest standard developed by the Infocomm Development Authority and Building Construction Authority for Green Data Centres.

The integrated DC complex will also deploy comprehensive security systems and procedures similar to Keppel's existing DC facilities which are compliant with the guidelines set by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in July 2012.

Amsterdam continues to stake a claim as a leading European data centre hub, with companies attracted there by good connectivity to the rest of the world and relatively cheap power. Data centre provider Securus Fund (part owner of CITADEL100) has bought its first facility there, the Almere Data Centre, is now Securus Fund's sixth data centre which it purchased last month. The Tier 3 facility will be used to provide colocation and business contingency services to its clients.
"Securus Fund's investment in the ADC is a natural choice as the Netherlands is one of the most well-connected countries in Europe," co-fund manager of Securus Fund, Bruno Lopez, said in a statement. "The availability and resiliency of the power supply also add to the advantages of owning a data centre in the Netherlands." 
A report, published by commercial property and real state adviser CBRE at the end of last year, found that Amsterdam has seen record data centre up-take for the last three consecutive years. The report also found that colocation space in Amsterdam increased by 18.3% in 2012, the highest of all the Tier 1 markets, as several of the main operators brought on capacity.

Jones Lang LaSalle has published its tenth UK and European Data Centre Barometer survey which shows overall positive sentiment for prospects for the EMEA market. However, the report warns that the increase in the industry’s consumption of traditional power supply means it is swimming against the tide of global modern policy and  power consumption which is placing an increased emphasis on renewable energy.

For the first time, Jones Lang LaSalle’s Barometer examines how global energy supply and regulation will impact the data centre sector. The survey found that two-thirds of respondents now rank power supply as their number one consideration when choosing a new data centre and that nuclear power across Europe is thought to be the most important source of power production in the run up to 2020, knocking gas from the top of the utilities list.
The report cites some examples of high profile and innovative data centre energy use, particularly in America. This includes Microsoft’s data centre building located next to a Wyoming landfill  to use its methane gas and Google has strategically chosen its data centres in Oklahoma and Iowa so they can directly benefit from wind farm production.
David Willcocks, Director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s Data Centre team, said: “The more the data centre industry understands the dynamics and challenges of the energy market the more it can closely align itself to achieving its own objectives. Its continued success is inextricably linked to its ability to source a reliable and cost effective power solution. The most notable issue is the cost implications of replacing ageing environmentally unfriendly power infrastructure. These will all have an effect on a country’s competitiveness against its European neighbours when vying for the attention of large data centre requirements.”
While there are examples of centres being built next to renewable forms of energy, respondents to this and previous surveys don’t see proximity to a renewable energy source as important in terms of location. This is because there is still a demand for data centres in or near large urban areas, for reasons which may include employment, accessibility and access to network infrastructure amongst others. The majority of data centres, therefore, will continue to face the on-going difficulties of accessibility to a secure and low-cost power supply.”
Jones Lang LaSalle’s survey also found that colocation IT providers and carriers remain optimistic; three quarters expect to expand their ‘in house’ portfolio over the next year. Encouragingly, in this year’s survey there was once again a fall in the number of respondents who will be reducing their ‘in house’ data centre space, to three percent.  While there was a drop in terms of expectation of expansion of ‘third party’ managed space to one-in-four from one-in-three, this is still above the long term average recorded since the survey began in 2009.
Developers and investors are showing increased optimism, with nearly two thirds of respondents expecting to expand the size of their ‘in house’ technical floorspace portfolio. There was also a slight softening of attitudes towards speculative or part-speculative development with nearly forty percent suggesting they would build out space with twenty five percent or less pre-let.
David Willcocks concluded: “Our daily experience suggests this development activity is limited to a situation where a scheme has already secured a pre-let agreement for at least a partial element of the scheme. Development activity on a purely speculative basis however remains relatively rare. ”

Link to download Report

Internap was the best performing data center stock in the first three months of 2013. Shares of the the Atlanta-based colocation provider soared 34.9 percent on the quarter, as strong earnings made it the standout performer in a decidedly mixed quarter for the data center sector.

Publicly-held companies on the Data Center Investor list were nearly evenly split, with six recording gains while five lost ground – an underwhelming performance in light of the strength in the broader market.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its best quarter in 15 years, gaining 11.25 percent, while the  S&P500 index rose 10.1 percent to end the quarter at record levels.

Only three companies beat the broader averages, including Internap (INAP), CoreSite Realty (COR) and CyrusOne (CONE), which received strong investor interest after its IPO on Jan. 18.

Shares of Internap surged after the company recorded a strong quarter, “indicating it is striking the right chords with its diverse portfolio of colocation, managed services and cloud,” as DCK’s Jason Verge noted in a recent profile. In recent years the company has focused on its colocation business, expanding its margins by concentrating on company-operated colo space.

At the other end of the spectrum is managed hosting and cloud computing specialist Rackspace Hosting. Shares of Rackspace (RAX) fell sharply after the company’s earnings report raised concerns that the rate of adoption for cloud computing services may be moderating. The slide reflects Wall Street’s high expectations for Rackspace, which saw its shares rise 72 percent in 2012 amid investor enthusiasm for cloud computing.

DuPont Fabros Technology has reported results for the quarter ended March 31, 2013. For the quarter ended March 31, 2013, the company reported earnings of US$0.12 per share compared to US$0.08 per share for the first quarter of 2012. Revenues increased 12%, or US$9.4 million, to US$87.8 million for the first quarter of 2013 over the first quarter of 2012. The increase in revenues is primarily due to new leases commencing. FFO for the quarter ended March 31, 2013 was US$0.40 per share which includes a US$0.02 per share charge related to the payoff of a secured loan, compared to US$0.34 per share for the first quarter of 2012.
During the first quarter 2013, the company signed one lease at SC1 with a lease term of 5.3 years totalling 2.28 MW and 11,000 raised sq ft. This leased commenced in the second quarter and SC1 is 88% leased as of March 31, 2013: Subsequent to the first quarter, the company signed one lease at CH1 with a weighted average lease term of 5.1 years totalling 1.73 MW and 10,151 raised sq ft. A portion of the lease commenced in the second quarter and the other portion is a replacement for the 0.43 MW expiring on December 31, 2013 and is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2014.

Pulsant, the cloud, data centre and connectivity company, has announced its results highlights for the financial year ending 31 December 2012:
Revenues: rose in headline terms by 51% to £30.43 million from £20.2million on 31 December 2011. EBITDA before exceptional items was £10.08 million, an increase of 41 per cent from £7.16 million in 2011. Colocation accounted for 59% of revenues, hosting/cloud services for 28% and managed networks for the remaining 13%.
Profits: Gross profit of £13.6m, operating profit was £2.1m
Losses: £3.87 million before tax, £5.07 million after tax
Expenditure: Capex accounted for £7.7m of outgoings, while there was a £9.8m cash consideration for Scolocate, £1.8m of deferred consideration, £1.7m of cash interest and £0.6m of tax
Funding: Pulsant received £12.3m of new funding, of which £8.3m was investor loan notes
Debt: Pulsant ended FY 2012 with gross debt of £84.1m (£42.6m loan notes and £40.9m of bank loans) and net debt of £75.2m
FY2012 is the first full year since the acquisition of Lumison, DediPower and BlueSquare Data. Scolocate, acquired by Pulsant in December 2012, will add £8.5m in revenues and £2.7m in EBITDA
“The financial year 2012 was one of change and growth for our business,” says Pulsant CEO, Mark Howling. “In March we brought together our three initial organisations under the Pulsant brand, followed by the acquisition of Scolocate in December. We now have 10 data centres throughout the UK, offering our “Triple-A” service model to 3,000 mid-tier and enterprise customers. During this time we have brought true next-generation cloud computing capability to market, this is beginning to see very strong revenue growth. We predict cloud will become an ever more significant revenue stream as more and more companies recognise the benefits of hosting services in the cloud to support mobility, drive performance and offer greater scalability.”

iomart Group,  the UK cloud computing and large DC user company, has revealed another big increase in revenue and pre-tax profits in its annual results report to the London Stock Exchange. For the year ending March 31 2013, iomart Group revenue grew by 29% to £43.1 million (2012: £33.5 million); pre-tax profit increased by 56% to £10.7 million (2012: £6.9 million); and there was a 48% rise in adjusted EBITDA to £16.5 million (2012: £11.2 million).
In his review, iomart’s chief executive reflected on the last three financial years. Since March 2010, when iomart Group reported its first year of profit, revenues have increased by 135%; profit before tax by 970%; and adjusted EBITDA by 430%. Angus MacSween said: “Whilst we are clearly extremely pleased with the development of the company over that period, we believe we are still in the early stages of providing solutions to the cloud computing market and are confident that we can continue to grow our operations significantly over the coming years.”
iomart Group acquired three hosting companies during the year – Skymarket, Melbourne Server Hosting and Internet Engineering Limited (trading as HostingUK) – increasing its datacentres from five to eight and giving it a physical presence in the North of England and North Wales.
iomart also invested in a resilient fibre network and has commenced work on increasing its Maidenhead datacentre capacity by a further 600 racks to pre-empt future demand for data storage.

Continued reporting of the alleged scale of the US internet monitoring programme could lead to increased demand for UK-based data centres, according to InTechnology, a Yorkshire-based cloud services firm. Stefan Haase, the divisional director of data cloud services believes companies and individuals will become more concerned about where their data is stored, following the publicity surrounding the Prism system.

Prism is said to give America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI easy access to the systems of some of the world’s top internet companies. It was reportedly established in 2007 by President George Bush and renewed last year under Barack Obama to allow surveillance of live communications and stored information on foreigners overseas.

IT professionals across Yorkshire believe that the publicity surrounding Prism will make companies and individuals consider ways of keeping sensitive information safe from prying eyes. According to Mr Haase, the US Patriot Act of 2001 grants the US government access to any data processed and stored in the US.

He added: “Given that a number of US organisations, with HQs in the US, will store data in EU data centres, the Patriot Act means even this data is up for grabs. “I predict that demand for UK-based data centres, who process and store data within the EU, will increase, in this way maintaining data privacy and security. On top of that, I expect to see an increased emphasis on total transparency during the service provider selection process, with
questions relating to data location becoming a much higher priority and having a greater impact on the decision-making process.”

Jonathan Edwards, managing director of Yorkshire Cloud, based in Harrogate, said: “Since the revelations about the Prism programme, we’ve seen an upsurge in enquiries about our cloud computing services, which are focused on local provision, with servers based at data centres in Yorkshire.”

Before the reports about Prism, Mr Edwards said that Yorkshire Cloud had been “constantly having to fight our corner and explain how, as a small regional provider, we could deliver a cloud computing offer that would match up with the likes of Microsoft and Amazon.

Cloud computing is redefining the Middle East's enterprise computing landscape. In the UAE alone, Cloud Services are expected to grow at a rate of over 40% in the next three years. Injazat Data Systems has announced that it has added 'Managed Virtual Data Center' Services to its comprehensive Enterprise Cloud portfolio in response to rapidly growing demand for premier Cloud Services in the country.

A pioneer in the region in harnessing the Enterprise Cloud to meet organizational IT requirements with the lowest possible Total Cost of Ownership, Injazat explains that it's Managed Virtual Data Center offers flexible packages for virtual servers, storage, networking and security, and data backup along with bundled bandwidth. Customers of the Service can opt for access over the internet or over a Multiprotocol Label Switching.

The software-defined Managed Virtual Data Center service frees enterprises from upfront capital investment, requiring them to pay for allocated infrastructure only under the cost-optimizing 'pay-as-you-grow' scheme inherent in cloud computing. It is also based on a best-of-breed infrastructure, with software, storage and networking supported by the Middle East's first Tier IV design-certified data center, the Injazat Premier Data Center, a facility capable of delivering the highest levels of data resiliency and availability.

The Managed Virtual Data Center services are inherently highly secured and are delivered from a protected environment that is fully compliant with the international ISO 27001 Information Security Management framework. The Service is underpinned by service management driven by best-practice Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards and is protected from technology obsolescence, thus enabling clients to focus on their core business. The Managed Virtual Data Center allows customers to deliver infrastructure faster and maximize cost benefits. 

"The explosion of Cloud Computing adoption and demand in the UAE and across the region requires solutions that are more flexible, cost effective, and efficient. With Managed Virtual Data Center Services, Injazat offers organizations a platform to better harness the 'cloud' to join enterprise IT movements towards virtualization, big data, and advanced data recovery. This new service can play a key role not only in optimizing business efficiencies in the UAE but also in further cementing the country's status as a leader in the region for technology enablement. For many enterprises in this part of the world Cloud Computing is the way forward; Managed Virtual Data Center is intended to support this growing sentiment," said Ibrahim Mohamed Lari, Chief Executive Officer, Injazat Data Systems. 

Injazat is currently augmenting key services such as Cloud Computing to accelerate the development of Abu Dhabi in particular into a full-fledged knowledge-based economy under the emirate's Economic Vision 2030 development strategy.

HP Enterprise Services Spain have announced that Generalitat de Catalunya (CTTI), the Government of Catalonia, has signed a US$67 million agreement for HP to transform the government's computing environment to a cloud-based infrastructure so it can operate more efficiently while improving services to its citizens.

Under the terms of the 10-year contract, HP will move CTTI's infrastructure from a dedicated client-owned data center to a secure, HP-managed cloud environment. HP will continue managing the organization's computing environment while migrating it to a virtual private cloud located in Barcelona, Spain. HP is expanding its managed cloud services to Spain as an extension of the HP Enterprise Cloud Services network already deployed in other European countries.
HP Enterprise Cloud Services - Virtual Private Cloud creates a flexible, secure computing environment that allows CTTI to quickly scale use up and down as needed. HP Enterprise Cloud Services - Virtual Private Cloud is a managed cloud environment that enables interoperability with other cloud and traditional IT architectures

A new consortium of datacentre technology suppliers, design engineers and scientific researchers have come together to support the European Commission CoolEmAll project, which aims to make datacentres more sustainable. Britain’s reputation for pollution once earned it the tag the dirty man of Europe. Now, the reputation of the data centre industry, one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and the only sector expanding, is becoming equally tarnished. But the consortium aims to rescue the industry’s reputation.

Members now include CA Technologies, Future Facilities, Norland Managed Services, Carbon3IT, University of Notre Dame and University of Leeds.

CoolEmAll aims to increase understanding about the interaction between IT hardware, software (applications and workloads) and power and cooling systems within data centres. The initiative is developing a number of tools, blueprints and other resources to help data centre designers, operators and technology suppliers to build and run more energy efficient facilities and equipment.

The consortium should deliver commercial and scientific viability and push back the frontiers of efficient data centre design and operation. The Advisory Board members bring a range of expertise to the project with CA Technologies, Future Facilities and Racktivity all developing tools for infrastructure management. Meanwhile, the University of Leeds is investigating the potential of liquid cooling in data centres.

Norland Managed Services, Future Tech and Carbon3IT will investigate issues around the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres. The Uptime Institute will provide professional services, education and certifications for the data centre industry. It will also keep and manager a network of datacentre operators.

Digital Realty Trust, the global provider of data centre solutions  has said that there is a need for Australian  data centres to measure their power usage. A recent survey undertaken by independent research firm Campos Research & Analysis on behalf of Digital Realty,  found that 39% of Australian data-centre operators who participated in the study were not measuring power use. Thirteen per cent of respondents did not know their power usage effectiveness, and 5% did not know what the term ''PUE'' meant.

Almost 90% of the participants, who indicated they are likely to expand in 2013, also stated that they were extremely confident or very confident about complying with future regulations in power use and carbon emissions.
Digital Realty senior vice-president and regional head, Asia Pacific, Kris Kumar, said the study showed that up to 90 per cent of the participants who indicated they were likely to expand in 2013 also stated they were either ''extremely confident'' or ''very confident'' about complying with future regulations on power use and carbon emissions

Google has annocued a series of agreements with O2 and Allianz to supply their Finnish data centre with renewable energy for the next 10 years—their  fourth long-term agreement to power their data centres with renewable energy worldwide, and their first in Europe.

A Google blog has outlined how the process works: “O2, the wind farm developer, has obtained planning approval to build a new 72MW wind farm at Maevaara, in Övertorneå and Pajala municipality in northern Sweden, using highly efficient 3MW wind turbines. We’ve committed to buying the entire output of that wind farm for 10 years so that we can power our Finnish data center with renewable energy. That agreement has helped O2 to secure 100% financing for the construction of the wind farm from the investment arm of German insurance company Allianz, which will assume ownership when the wind farm becomes operational in early 2015.
This arrangement is possible thanks to Scandinavia’s integrated electricity market and grid system, Nord Pool. It enables us to buy the wind farm’s output in Sweden with Guarantee of Origin certification and consume an equivalent amount of power at our data center in Finland. We then “retire” the Guarantee of Origin certificates to show that we’ve actually used the energy”.

Bynet, Israel’s largest systems integrator and a major provider of information technology services, is building a new datacentre that will ensure Israel is able to continue functioning in the event of a catastrophic event. Thirty five meters underground, servers will be well protected from disaster, natural or man-made, allowing the country to quickly restore the many services that depend on data.

When the datacentre’s first section goes online in 2014, the new datacentre in the Har Hotzvim hi-tech area will protect data for the banks, the large corporations, and the government offices that decide to store their servers and cloud systems in the new datacentre, said Alon Bar-Tsur, CEO of Bynet Data Communications.

“The location of this centre gives us excellent protection, as it is deeply embedded in Har Hotzvim,” Bar-Tsur said. “Because it is essentially located inside a cave, less energy will be needed to cool it off, as it will be naturally cooler. In addition, the generally cooler and less-humid weather in Jerusalem will also contribute to energy savings.”

Israel has numerous datacentres spread throughout the country, but many of them are located in the Tel Aviv area. In addition, there are few that offer a full range of services, said Bar-Tsur, with most offering only collocation. Security is better at some than at others; for example, three datacentres run by Bezeq for private enterprise are located underground, while several government facilities are in office buildings.

Bynet is part of the Rad Bynet Group, which encompasses 24 companies working in a variety of tech areas. Bynet runs several datacentres, but the new Jerusalem centre will be the country’s largest; it is planned to eventually cover 17,000 square meters. It will also be the country’s most secure, said Bar-Tsur, 10 below ground, with up to 100,000 servers, capable of providing all of Israel’s current server, backup, and cloud-service needs.

The Board of NEXTDC Limited has announced that it has sold its 26.45 million stapled securities held in APDC (Asia Pacific Data Centre Group). As announced on 6 June 2013, due to increased sales NEXTDC will be accelerating the fit-out of its S1 and M1 facilities. The A$28.1 million raised, after costs, from the sale of the APDC securities will be applied towards the funding of the accelerated fit-out.

APDC is a special purpose real estate investment trust (REIT) which has been established to own properties (land and buildings) that are operated or being developed as data centres. APDC has been established with the intention of providing investors with a stable income via quarterly distributions of cash flows and the potential for capital growth by investing in assets in a high growth and developing industry.

NEXTDC is an ASX 300 company and is the only independent data centre operator with a strategic footprint in all major growth markets in Australia. It offers a range of highly flexible, scalable, resilient and secure colocation services to corporate, government and IT services companies. As a cloud enabler, NEXTDC's enterprise-class data centre facilities address the challenges of security, connectivity and neutrality that have hindered the wider acceptance of cloud computing.

Colt Technology Services has announced enterprise class DC cloud services in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. By joining together with KVH, Colt will now be able to offer enterprise customers the ability to deploy, manage and automate network and compute resources in both Europe and Asia, remotely from any location. As companies continue to look outside Europe for growth, Colt's easy to consume Optimum Services for IT will enable its European customers to scale in line with business requirements, whether to underpin 24/7 global business operations, cope with fluctuations in demand, or to support expansion into new markets.
Simon Walsh, EVP, Colt, says "The expanding Asian markets are increasingly attractive for our European customers looking for growth opportunities outside of the euro zone. But this expansion creates a challenge for the CIO who needs to provide remote users with fast and reliable access to business-critical systems while at the same time complying with individual country data sovereignty requirements. This needs to be addressed without the significant CAPEX budget required to build infrastructure locally, or the time to seek out trusted providers in Asia. Colt can now meet customer demand for scalable services in Asia backed up with support in local languages, a single SLA and flexible commercials. Customers can be confident that IT can keep pace with the speed of business transformation but also pave the way for future growth."
KVH and Colt already collaborate closely. The use of common technology and systems allows Colt and KVH to easily deliver services to customers with consistent reporting and a single view of their compute and network resources. Irrespective of whether business applications are hosted in, for example, Frankfurt, Madrid or Tokyo, Colt customers will have a single SLA across all services with single currency pricing, making the procurement and operation of new services consistent across countries and continents.
Fidelity has invested in both Colt and KVH to enable them to provide the same level of flexible, efficient and integrated IT solutions. Both companies offer enterprise customers a similar service portfolio and utilise common underlying technology. By working together, Colt and KVH can provide the same high quality and performance across Europe and into Asia with KVH and Colt fibre networks and data centres. This follows the recent Colt news announcing the largest enterprise class cloud footprint in Europe, available in datacentres in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. In Asia the service is already available in Hong Kong and will be deployed in Japan and Singapore by the end of 2013.

Norwegian data center operator Green Mountain is going after one of the biggest pain points in the industry, offering stabilized power prices for up to ten years at its 22,000 sq m data center in Stavenger, which sources energy from three different hydropower suppliers.
Green Mountain’s owners said the data center, with its green energy use, has the smallest carbon footprint on the market but the other benefit of hydropower is the cheap price.
Customers are being offered fixed price power contracts for three, five and ten-year periods at €37.5, €38.5 and €41 per megawatt respectively, Green Mountain DC CEO Knut Molaug said.
“With the energy market as volatile as it is now, we believe stable prices will be a big selling point,” Molaug said.

The data center is a building within a mountain on an island, the site having been hollowed out during the cold war to house NATO operations.
It uses sea water to cool its halls and is powered by electricity created from local dams.
According to Eurostat, all energy in the Stavanger region is generated through hydropower.

Green Mountain sources power from three different suppliers.
The facility operators said the data center meets Uptime Institute Tier III standards and most of the criteria for Tier IV compliance. With a latency for communications across the North Sea at 6.5 ms (to London), Green Mountain is targeting UK firms likely to be hit by surging power costs.

The company’s ability to stabilize energy prices, based on its source of sustainable Norwegian power, will be the biggest selling point to companies as energy costs grow faster than any other variable on the market, Molaug said.
“Power costs 12% per kWh in the UK. Here it’s less than half that.”

According to UK's OFGEM, power in the UK could double in the next ten years. Consumer group Energy Helpline predicts a surge of 150% in the next eight.
“Stability of energy prices will be the biggest issue among many of Britain’s IT buyers,” said Molaug. “If companies choose us to host their data, they can enjoy a predictable cost base in a world in which energy prices are incredibly volatile. Since CFOs generally sign off purchasing orders these days, that can only be an attractive proposal.”

The availability of sufficient, low cost power is an important issues and Norway is very well positioned in this regard, said Andy Lawrence, VP of research on data center technologies and eco-efficient IT at 451 Research.
“[But] customers will expect the power savings to be passed on. Low cost and reliable power is definitely helping Norway establish itself as a data center destination,” Lawrence said.

SingleHop, a global leader in highly automated dedicated servers, cloud computing, and infrastructure-as-a-service, has announced the official grand opening of its new Amsterdam data centre. The new facility is built to meet growing demand for high-quality, automated infrastructure, and hosting services from organizations operating in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
In early April, SingleHop announced plans to open the facility and allowed customers to reserve server space ahead of time. More than seventy five percent of the initial data centre capacity was reserved before the facility opened.
“We are very pleased by what we have been seeing. Since announcing the data centre, we’ve been flooded with requests from hosting services providers, systems integrators, game developers, and a variety of digital start-ups. These types of organizations are core to our company as a whole, and represent the types of clients that benefit most from our highly automated and natively hybrid platform,” commented Zak Boca, Chief Executive Officer of SingleHop.

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, a telecom operator in the United Arab Emirates. better known as Du , has bought a 10% stake in data centre company Khazna Data Center which is owned by the Abu Dhabi government.
Du has bought the stake in Khazna Data Center for a maximum financial commitment of 57.5 million dirhams depending on funding requirements set out in a plan related to the construction of data centres, the Dubai-based telco said. Khazna Data Center is currently 100% owned by Mubadala, an investment vehicle owned by the Abu Dhabi government.
Last month, Khazna Data Center Limited signed an agreement with du, to be the anchor tenant in two data centre operations built by Khazna and set to be opened in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The 10-year agreement will create facilities for du to house the IT and telecommunications equipment that is critical to its business needs.

Frankfurt attracted 43% of European data centre take up in the first quarter of 2013, according to new research from global property advisor CBRE. Cloud computing has again been the main driver for new data centre requirements, as businesses seek to alleviate pressure on existing IT capacity.
Despite the potential flexibility in location choice cloud computing can offer, at present end users prefer to house their data and infrastructure within easy reach of their core business. Established European data centre hubs are benefiting seeing new business emerge from both corporates and cloud providers. In particular, locations with strong connectivity such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt are attracting increased attention with Frankfurt recording the majority share of take up in Q1.
In London, growing business confidence is translating into new demand for data centre services with corporate appetite toward outsourcing IT increasing. In Q1, London’s retail operators can reflect on an encouraging start to the year with the highest amount of quarterly take up since 2011.
CBRE’s quarterly Data Centre MarketView, which analyses the five biggest markets in EMEA (London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris and Madrid) also indicates that the rate of new supply coming to market will slow in 2013.  This follows a record year of new build and expansion activity in 2012.
Andrew Jay, Executive Director, Data Centres, EMEA, CBRE said “Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London are outperforming Paris and Madrid in the data centre market, where a substantial improvement in business sentiment is still some way off. London and Frankfurt’s positions as strategic financial centres, alongside Amsterdam’s reputation as a TMT hub means that we expect these markets to continue to attract consistent demand over the coming year.”

The managed services provider Adapt has acquired Sleek, the Leeds-based cloud hosting provider that serves high-profile brands including Pizza Express, and Ordnance Survey. As a result of the deal, Adapt has accelerated its organic growth by gaining more than 20 enterprise customers, a team of 20 highly skilled technical staff and a strategic footprint in the north of England.
Existing Sleek customers, who already take advantage of the provider’s managed private, public and hybrid cloud models, now have the option to add further scale to their services with access to Adapt’s wider portfolio of managed services, real-time management portal (aMP) and award-winning enterprise Virtual Data Centre platform.
Adapt and Sleek share near-identical values in terms of service quality, technical excellence, customer focus and culture, helping make the deal a quick and smooth process.
In terms of synergy between the two organisations, Stewart Smythe, CEO of Adapt, cites purity of proposition as the key. “Both organisations are about delivering the highest quality infrastructure, wrapped in an exceptional support layer.  Our shared vision is perfect for those organisations who see IT as astrategic asset that must contribute to their competitive advantage and bottom line.”
Ryan McCarry, managing director at Sleek, added: “We admire the way Adapt has developed infrastructure designed to serve the needs of the mid-tier and enterprise market. It is a credible, knowledgeable provider with quality service values like our own that make it stand out in the sector and our customers are excited about the opportunity it offers. It will accelerate growth in our region, consolidate our position and further develop our reputation for quality cloud services.”
Smythe makes it clear this acquisition is the opposite of the brash buy-and-build-strategies being adopted in the sector.  He said: “Sleek enhances what we already offer to customers and is a very natural fit. The acquisition broadens Adapt’s existing IaaS proposition with accessible entry-level cloud services; for Sleek it’s an opportunity to deliver scale choice to its customers without compromising on the account management and service quality that they’ve come to expect.
Smythe maintains the majority of Adapt’s mid-term growth will be organic, but doesn’t rule out the possibility of future acquisitions, provided they offer expertise and capabilities that match thecompany’s existing vision for service excellence and operational purity.  Last year Adapt acquired Cardiff-based eLINIA to enhance its position within the UK managed services marketplace.

According to local reports, Miran, the Russian telecommunications company is set to deploy its second data centre in St Petersburg with the first phase set to be launched in August.
The reports claim that the company has invested a total of RUB 80 million and that hosting services contracts at the new data centre have already been concluded for almost the whole capacity.

High profile footballers and football mangers including Wayne Rooney, Roy Hodgson and Arsene Wenger have become embroiled in allegations that they have benefited from a tax relief scheme related to the construction of data centres, on the Cobalt business park in the North east.
According to recent report in the Guardian, Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said the lack of tenants for two data centres on the business estate near Newcastle fuelled the perception that the scheme was aimed at tax avoidance.
The footballers and others collectively invested to buy the buildings in April 2011, receiving tax relief at the then 50% top rate. The scheme took advantage of tax reliefs for building projects in enterprise zones which were subsequently abolished in April 2011 and replaced with different allowances.
The Guardian outlined the financials as such “The 674 Cobalt investors paid an average £117,000 each, £79m collectively, or 30% of the £264 milioin total cost of buying the data centres. The remaining 70%, £185m, was borrowed from Bank Winter of Vienna. Although they put in only part of the cost, the investors were entitled under the enterprise zone rules to the full 50% tax relief on the £264m purchase price – £132m. After tax, the investors made a £52m profit from HMRC, paid soon after the deal was concluded in April 2011”
The newspaper also contacted Nick Astaire of Harcourt Capital, the scheme's organiser, who said investors such as Hodgson, Wenger, Rooney and Carr were bringing regeneration to the north-east. He said the highly technical nature of data centres meant prospective tenants did not consider them until they were built, and "the critical marketing period starts now".

Etihad Airways, the United Arab Emirates’ national airline and  one of the world’s fastest-growing full-service carriers, and global IT and communications provider, SITA, have announced a 10-year strategic partnership. The multi-million dollar agreement will provide the airline with the latest global infrastructure solutions, while reducing the cost and complexity of IT. The partnership will underpin Etihad’s vision to be a truly 21st century, global airline, challenging and changing established conventions.
Over the decade, SITA will deliver infrastructure and end-user computing solutions powered by the Air Transport Industry (ATI) Cloud, which will ensure up-to-date services are continually available as Etihad expands its global presence.
Etihad is also adopting new innovative services including SITA CrewTablet, which its cabin crew will use to access passenger and operational data via tablets. This end-to-end mobility solution designed specifically for the airline industry will enhance in-flight services and customer interaction for Etihad’s more than 10 million passengers. In addition, SITA is working with the airline to establish new connectivity solutions at airport gates to enable the most efficient management of Etihad’s next-generation aircraft.

The International construction services company . ISG has been appointed as lead contractor on a second Nordic data centre project, also for a global technology company, with a value of circa €150m (approx. £127m).
Incorporating the very latest cooling technology, the data centre is expected to be the most sustainable and energy efficient facility of its type in the world. Over a six-month period, ISG has now secured around €300m (approx. £254m) of data centre project wins in the Nordic region - Last December, ISG announced it had been appointed to build a £122 million data centre in one of the Nordic countries for an un-named global technology firm.
David Lawther, ISG Chief Executive Officer, said "Securing a second major data center project in the Nordics reinforces our global delivery credentials in this highly specialised and burgeoning industry sector. Our overseas activities are making an increasingly significant contribution to the Group and our growing reputation with multi-national blue chip companies will underpin our continued targeted geographical expansion.”

Research from the University of Adelaide research predicts Australian internet traffic will increase by more than five times by 2016 to hit one exabyte of data a month by 2016. Professor Matt Roughan has done analysis based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which suggests that the volume has been doubling every 465 days since 2004.
“History in internet traffic globally has shown that every time you add capacity, new innovations come along to fill it," Professor Matt Roughan told iT News.

The focus on the modern data center is only continuing to grow. As the business world moves to digitize even more infrastructure components, the data center will sit square in the middle of all of these new deployments. In fact, almost all of the new technologies and modern solutions which are coming out find the data center as their home. We can now call it “The Data Center of Everything.”

There are a lot more users coming online. These users are sharing more data and are requiring more services to be delivered to them. Data and services must stay highly available and very resilient. Furthermore, as more users fill the data center environment, high-density computing and highly efficiency systems are making their ways into the data center 2.0 infrastructures.

Big data center providers are sitting ahead of the curve for a few very specific reasons. They caught the cloud wave at the right time and deployed internal systems which were capable of handling the influx of data, users, and business which came to the data center for help.

Infrastructure Without Walls
As the data center of everything, organizations are directly looking to these new types of platforms to help them with many new types of business challenges. Companies of all sizes and verticals now see it as financially feasible and logical to move towards a data center model. And for good reason too. The data center has evolved from a brick and mortar shop to an infrastructure without walls. This means that these environments are logically connected to create massive resources pools and highly available data center platforms.
So, why is it good to be in the data center business?

- More data center services. Today’s data center environment isn’t there just to host servers and hardware. Data center providers are proactively building in services into their offering stack to entice new, modern customers. That means offering services around virtualization, cloud computing, disaster recover, and even hybrid data center extensions. All of these new services are evolving because more organizations are moving to a data center model. Infrastructure is becoming less expensive and the landscape is a lot more competitive. For many IT shops – it simply makes sense to move to a hosted data center model.
- More data to be managed. The average user may utilize three to four devices to access cloud-based resources. Whether this is a simple email or an entire desktop – these on-demand services have to be delivered from somewhere. Furthermore, all of these devices and connections transmit data and information. Data centers are becoming the hub for big data management and big data services. The highly distributed nature of big data has helped data center providers find yet another niche where they can help. By connecting their data centers together, providers can offer large networks where massive amounts of data can be analyzed and quantified. These types of services will only continue to grow for the data center model as big data continues to grow as an industry demand.
- More users coming to the cloud. The use of Internet services and wide area networking (WAN) has truly exploded. Now, we have everything from IPTV to everything being streamed via high-bandwidth resources. Furthermore, more bandwidth is becoming available for both the user and the organization. The data center of everything is also the home to the cloud. As the central hub for all connectivity and data distribution – the modern data center is tasked with hosting some of the most advanced technologies out there. Couple this with high-density computing, multi-tenancy storage, advanced networking technology, and top-down management solutions in the form of a data center operating system – and you will see the blueprint for the data center 2.0 platform.
- Global connectivity. The world has become more connected. The drive to conquer distance is driving the creation of the data center without walls. Modern technologies allow us to place more users, applications and workloads on a single blade. In turn, we are able to create large – logical network capable of global connectivity and failover. New types of load-balancing solutions allow for global traffic management and controls. This means that the data center is no longer one single entity. Rather, it is a node within a large cluster of interconnected data center environments. Basically, this is the formulation of the cloud and the globally connected networking environment.
The modern data center will only continue to evolve. Business drivers and demands are growing and more organizations are offloading services to the data center platform. Remember, the data center environment has become the heart of any organization as the central IT resource. These environments are being carefully managed, monitored and planned around for the future.

Conversations around pre-fabricated and modularized data centers are already growing rapidly. According to the 2012 Uptime Institute Survey, 41 percent of their respondents said that they are using traditional data center environments which are supplemented with pre-fabricated components. Another 19 percent said that they already have a data center made entirely out of pre-fabricated systems.

As reliance around the data center continues to grow, providers must stay ahead of the curve. This means understanding new demands and delivering data center services around those offerings. Whether those are new types of cloud platforms or better big data management systems – the data center will be the home of it all.

LAMDA Hellix SA, the Neutral World-Class Data Center Services provider in South East Europe, has announced that Apostolos Kakkos, its founder & CEO, along with Ioanna- Elena Markou, founder & Vice Chairman, have acquired the remaining stake of LAMDA Hellix and now control 100% of the company’s capital.
The company has also announced that Guy Willner, has joined its Board of Directors as a non-executive member. Recently being awarded Datacenter Dynamics' Data Center Business Leader of the Year (2012), Guy Willner is the co-Founder and CEO of IXcellerate (Moscow), Board Member at Teraco (South Africa) and Founder and Chairman of the International Data Centre Group (IDC-G). Guy was previously the co-founder of IXEurope, a market leader in high-end data centre services, raising approximately $250 million in equity and debt. IXEurope joined the London Stock Exchange in April 2006, before being acquired by Equinix Inc in September 2007 for $555million.
Apostolos Kakkos, European Data Centre Entrepreneur of the Year 2012, commented: “LAMDA Hellix has been one of the most successful Data Center providers in South Eastern Europe, with a proven track record of 116 months with 100% availability and 39 fully profitable quarters, since the launch of its services in 2003. Together with the management team, we believe in the company and its prospects, driven by our strategic plan that includes both local and international expansion. Furthermore, I would like to welcome Guy Willner to our Board of Directors. Guy, has been one of the most influential and successful leaders in the European Data Centre market and beyond for the past decade. His deep knowledge, international experience and entrepreneurship will be a significant additional asset towards realizing our business objectives.”
Guy Willner, commented: “I have been following LAMDA Hellix’s success the past few years and I am really excited to be involved with the company. Under Apostolos’ leadership the company has witnessed remarkable growth during the Euro-Crisis period and I am sure the same applies for its prospects ahead.”

Taiwan based Chunghwa Telecom has held a ground-breaking ceremony for a flagship new data centre located in New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. The facility is set for completion at the end of 2014 with operations set to begin in 2015.
CHT chairman and CEO Lee Yen-sung ha stated that the total investment in the facility will reach some NT$13 billion (US$433 million). In all the facility occupies a plot of some 21,500 sq m with a total floor area of 88,600 sq m. The design of the data centre complies with eight Taiwan-specified and international standards for high-performance data centres.  Lee said that CHT will seek to buy equipment and facilities for the data centre from local suppliers.

Many data centres could be failing to optimise performance by failing to centralise monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of critical systems according to a recent survey from Keysource. It found that whilst almost three quarters of decision makers and influencers are now familiar with Data Centre Infrastructure Management there is still a long way to go before the adoption of this integrated approach to management and monitoring becomes widespread.
Of the 150 data centre professionals that completed the survey, the majority already have some form of status and performance monitoring of mechanical and electrical infrastructure. Meanwhile, more than 60% do plan in advance the potential impact of changes to data centre utilisation, availability and efficiency. Yet almost half of owners and operators have no tools in place to track and manage IT assets in their data centre and only 40% measure in real-time power usage across different sub systems and infrastructure.
Rob Elder, Director of Keysource commented: “Utilising a Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution will support the integration of the physical facilities infrastructure with the IT infrastructure to achieve centralised monitoring and management. These findings suggest that a large proportion of owners and operators are failing to achieve optimum performance because it is not possible to improve what you do not understand.”

Rackspace Hosting the open cloud company, has launched Australia’s first public cloud offering powered by OpenStack. Following the opening of the Rackspace Sydney datacentre in February 2013, today’s launch of public cloud provides full access to the Rackspace hybrid cloud offering for local businesses.
The Rackspace Hybrid Cloud combines elements of public cloud, private cloud and/or dedicated servers, and allows them to work together as one infrastructure. Hybrid cloud can often provide better performance, reliability, security and lower total cost of ownership than a public cloud can deliver on its own.
“We believe that a hybrid cloud option changes the way Australian businesses will make their cloud buying decisions,” said Angus Dorney, Director and General Manager, Rackspace Australia and New Zealand. “As cloud adoption increases in Australia, businesses are becoming more aware of proprietary technologies that lock them in to specific architectures and vendors. Today’s news frees Australian businesses from the vendor lock-in that they face at other major cloud providers, and provides choice for them to deploy an open hybrid cloud.”

A new Disaster Recovery centre in Abu Dhabi has been given approval form the Executive Committee of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. The centre would ensure continuity of service in the event of disruption to the existing government data centre.

According to local media sources the project is designed to boost confidence of investors and businesses, in the ability of the government to efficiently provide resilience and response to different emergencies and its measures to reduce risks the government economic services could face.

DuPont Fabros Technology, a leading owner, developer, operator and manager of enterprise-class, carrier-neutral, large multi-tenanted wholesale data centres, has announced that the Company exercised the accordion feature on its unsecured revolving credit facility, increasing the total commitment under the facility from US$225 million to US$400 million.  The Company also amended the facility to expand the accordion feature to provide the Company with the option to increase the total commitment to US$600 million, if one or more lenders commit to being a lender for the additional amount and certain other customary conditions are met.  All other key terms of the credit facility remain in full force and effect.  The facility expires in March 2016 and includes a one-year extension option.  As of the date of this release, there is $60 million of borrowings under this facility.

Mark L. Wetzel, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the Company, stated, "We are pleased to have increased the facility adding four new lenders and having several existing lenders increase their commitment.  This expanded facility provides us with additional capacity at a low cost of capital to fully fund our current ACC7 development in Ashburn, Virginia and a second development, as we grow the company."

The Company's ten data centres are located in four major U.S. markets, which total 2.5 million gross square feet and 218 megawatts of available critical load to power the servers and computing equipment of its customers.  DuPont Fabros Technology, a real estate investment trust (REIT) is headquartered in Washington, DC.

Epiq Systems, a leading provider of managed technology for the global legal profession, has announced the opening of its first data centre in Shanghai. It offers data collection, processing and hosting facilities, enabling clients to host and review data on mainland China using Clearwell technology. Operations will be supported by multilingual (including Mandarin-speaking) production and project management professionals.
Epiq's Shanghai data centre is the most recent addition to the company's growing presence in Asia, complementing the data centres and offices located in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Since opening in 2009, Epiq's Hong Kong office has seen steady revenue increases as well as an expansion of services, staff and space. Epiq's Tokyo office opened in February of this year.
"The establishment of our data centre in China marks a new and exciting stage in Epiq's global expansion," said Derek Crampton, General Manager, Epiq Systems, Asia. "Our move into China demonstrates our commitment to providing international support to facilitate secure, compliant cross-border data transactions."

The leading Swedish hosting company, City Network has announced that it has launched a new data centre in Stockholm to support its public cloud service, Cloud City which it first launched in 2009.
With the launch of a new data centre, customers can now start the servers and storage with the push of a button, both in Stockholm and in the company’s existing data centre in Karlskrona. This means that the Cloud City provides the opportunity to grow and build redundant full virtualized solutions with the same SLA and support from two locations - both the physical hardware and the cloud service Cloud City.

IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire SoftLayer Technologies. the world's largest privately held cloud computing data centre infrastructure provider. The acquisition will strengthen IBM’s leadership position in cloud computing and will help speed business adoption of public and private cloud solutions. Although financial terms were not disclosed officially, the price paid has been reported by some sources as US$2 billion.

“As businesses add public cloud capabilities to their on-premise IT systems, they need enterprise-grade reliability, security and management. To address this opportunity, IBM has built a portfolio of high-value private, public and hybrid cloud offerings, as well as software-as-a-service business solutions,” said Erich Clementi, Senior Vice President, IBM Global Technology Services. “With SoftLayer, IBM will accelerate the build-out of our public cloud infrastructure to give clients the broadest choice of cloud offerings to drive business innovation.”
IBM is acquiring SoftLayer to make it easier and faster for clients around the world to incorporate cloud computing by marrying the speed and simplicity of SoftLayer’s public cloud services with the enterprise grade reliability, security and openness of the IBM SmartCloud portfolio.
SoftLayer accelerates IBM’s ability to integrate public and private clouds for its clients, with flexibility that provides deployment options that enable a faster, broader transformation for small, medium and large businesses with a range of performance and security models.
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, SoftLayer serves approximately 21,000 customers with a global cloud infrastructure platform spanning 13 data centres in the US, Asia and Europe. Among its many innovative cloud infrastructure services, SoftLayer allows clients to buy enterprise-class cloud services on dedicated or shared servers, offering clients a choice of where to deploy their applications.

Lattelecom the leading electronic communications service provider in Latvia, has opened a new data centre - Dattum.
The facility which is fully Tier III certified by the Uptime Institute can support 4,500 servers and has both a grid connection and its own autonomous diesel-powered electricity generators.

Datacom, one of Australasia’s largest independent business technology solutions providers, has recently opened its newest data centre in Hamilton, Kapua but the level of demand it has already experienced, is making the company consider its expansion plans already.
The facility which opened ahead of schedule has a current capacity of 920 racks based across five data floors but Datacom CEO Greg Davidson is quoted in local media as saying “We’re seeing solid demand from the market and are advancing our expansion plans at Kapua. We now have the largest footprint of purpose built IT datacentre services in New Zealand and beyond the infrastructure Kapua is the neutral ground for a collaborative IT community. In keeping with our open and independent approach, this facility provides customers with a destination for housing their technology regardless of who they have sourced it from, or who they have supporting it," he adds.

NTT Communications has announced that it acquired a 74% share of Digital Port Asia Limited (Digital Port), a provider of data centre services in Thailand.
Digital Port was established in 2012 by Mr. Montri Anivat and his family, who founded Unitrio Technology Limited, a leading builder of data centres. Digital Port is scheduled to open a large data centre in Amata Industrial Park in a suburb of Bangkok, where many multinational companies are based, in June 2014. The 9,600 sq m facility will accommodate about 1,400 racks, making it one of the largest data centres in Thailand. As a dedicated data centre it will ensure high quality and its flood-free location will contribute to robust reliability.
Motoo Tanaka, Senior Vice President of Cloud Services at NTT Com, said, "BCP strengthening is a key focus of our cloud-service expansion plan in Thailand. Digital Port’s new data center will be a highly reliable facility on its own, and by combining it with existing data centers in the country, we expect to achieve even greater reliability for enhanced BCP solutions. We also are delighted that this acquisition will further strengthen the infrastructure supporting NTT Com’s global seamless cloud services."

Pacnet has announced the completion of the expansion of its Sydney data centre to meet increasing enterprise demand for high-density colocation and cloud services in Australia.

"As the pulse of the Australian economy, Sydney is a key part of our expansion plans," said Jim Fagan, President of Managed Services, Pacnet. "Through this expanded facility, Pacnet continues to strategically invest and grow its data centre footprint in Asia Pacific to address the high-power, high-performance and high-efficiency needs of global enterprises looking to deploy cloud applications and multi-site projects."
Located in the central business district of Sydney at Liverpool Street, the second phase of the Pacnet Sydney Data Centre delivers 13,950 sq ft (1,295 sq m) of gross Tier III data centre space, and adds an additional 350 racks and 3 MW of total power to the facility.

Strukton has been awarded a contract by Global Switch, the leading owner and operator of wholesale carrier neutral data centre space in Europe and Asia-Pacific for Phase 1 of a planned 25,400 sq m gross space expansion of their data centre in the Netherlands.
The order for this first Phase covers the construction, which has just started, of a new building and the realisation of the electrical, technical and mechanical elements. The completed building for this first Phase will be delivered in December 2013.
Previously Strukton Worksphere has built a number of  data rooms for Global Switch in Amsterdam, along with the associated electrical, technical and mechanical infrastructure.

Savvis, a CenturyLink company and global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions, has announced 10 expansions to its worldwide data centre footprint.

The opening of new data centres in Hong Kong and London, paired with expansions of eight existing Savvis data centres, are in response to growing global demand for enterprise cloud, managed hosting, network and colocation services.
"Whether it's empowering stock trades in the global market, pulling data from the cloud to deliver life-saving medical treatments or simply sending e-cards to friends across the world, the foundational technology that makes it all possible resides in a data centre," said Jeff Von Deylen, president of Savvis. "By expanding our footprint, we're giving businesses additional strategic, secure locations and interconnectivity opportunities for growing their capabilities and core business offerings through infrastructure outsourcing."
The following expansions and additions offer approximately 85,000 sq ft of new space to Savvis' global presence, boosting the company's total available data centre space to more than 2.4 million sq ft across more than 50 data centres located throughout North America, Europe and Asia:

-Boston (expansion completed in April 2013)
-Atlanta (expansion completed in April 2013)
-London (addition completed in April 2013, plus separate facility expansion to be completed in September 2013)
-Singapore (completed expansion in April 2013)
-Washington, D.C. (expansion completed in May 2013)
-Dallas (expansion to be completed in July 2013)
-Piscataway, N.J. (expansion to be completed in August 2013)
-Tampa (expansion to be completed in October 2013)
-Hong Kong (addition to be completed in November 2013)

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand has announced its third consecutive year of growth as it reaps the rewards of its early investment in cloud capability and data centre infrastructure. Significant new account wins have also contributed to an accelerated growth of 5.8%, outperforming the average growth for the ICT industry in ANZ by more than double.
Mike Foster, Chief Executive Officer, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand said: “Our strategy was to invest early in cloud and data centre infrastructure and this commitment has paid off. Over the last 12 months we have signed a significant number of Enterprise deals, growing our top and bottom line for the third year running and outperforming the market.
New cloud customers including Asciano, CBA, Freehills, Grocon, Perpetual and WA Health have all contributed to the milestone first petabyte of data now committed to customers in the Fujitsu cloud. From the launch of its cloud services in 2010, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand has to date completed a total data centre infrastructure spend of approximately A$170 million, A$60 million of which was spent in 2012 on the Noble Park facility in Victoria.
Fujitsu is also able to leverage its Japanese parent’s global delivery capability to meet local customer needs. Australia’s local data centre footprint is linked to Fujitsu’s global network of more than 100 facilities around the world. Fujitsu has also made significant investments in its Global WAN, enabling greater leverage of its global data centre footprint.
New multi-year managed services contracts - A number of significant multi-year deals in government, transport and financial services verticals, including contracts with Perpetual, the NZ Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), and the PeopleSoft CRM support contract with the WA Department of Child Protection.
Fujitsu’s Managed Services business won the ITSMF Service Desk Project of the Year, ISG Paragon Award for Service Provider Innovation Excellence, as well as other highly respected awards. These awards were largely attributed to the success of its unique ROC service delivery framework for service excellence.
Supercomputing Supremacy - Fujitsu was named as the successful bidder to design, build and support the fastest High Performance Supercomputer configuration in the southern hemisphere for the Australian National University. Worth A$26 million over four years to Fujitsu, the supercomputer will take Australian research capacity to new levels in areas such as Climate and Weather, Physics, Astronomy, Geosciences, Chemistry and Advanced Materials.

The Sigma Group, a French company y specialising in software development, consulting, integration and outsourcing, is set to launch a new data centre in Carquefou, a suburb of Nantes.
The data centre – the company’s’ third, will total some 2,000 sq m, will triple the company’s hosting capacity. The new facility has cost Sigma some €7 million in investment and is set to open in the spring of 2013.

With its Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) tool, eBay revealed just how truly efficient its Data Centre infrastructure is across a variety of metrics. The company has now hit its first full quarter of public data that measures how the company performed against its own goals.

In March, eBay launched its Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) methodology – a “miles per gallon” equivalent that displayed infrastructure effectiveness in real-time across 4 key business priorities: performance, cost, environmental impact and revenue.

Among Q1 highlights, the company raised the number of transactions per kilowatt-hour and it exceeded its cost per transaction goal. Despite increasing its number of servers powering eBay.com, there was an increase of only 16 percent (2.69 MW) in power consumption, which the company contributes to the efficiency of new servers.

There were also improvements across performance, cost, and environmental impact. In terms of environmental impact, a big boost came from the company’s Salt Lake City data center’s solar array, increasing the company’s clean energy use. While the solar array is small, it increased owned clean energy powering eBay.com by 0.17 percent, and there’s a fuel cell installation expected to come online this summer.

The company’s goals were:
•   Increase transactions per kWh by 10 percent transactions per kWh increased 18 percent year over year)
•   Reduce cost per transaction by 10 percent cost per transaction decreased 23 percent in Q1 alone, exceeding the initial goal
•  Reduce carbon per transaction by 10 percent carbon per transaction showed a net decrease of 7 percent; this was the only metric the company didn’t blow past. There’s its Utah Bloom fuel cell installation that will go live this summer, which will decrease and contribute significantly to the 10% carbon reduction goal set for the year. The company is confident it will remain on track to hitting this goal, recognizing that infrastructure is dynamic and changes.

Some of these positive trends were driven by newer, smarter features on the site including feed technology rolled out last fall. The feed technology attempts to personalize the shopping experience by showing auctions that might be of interest based on a user’s history.

Also important to note is that the company fine-tuned the methodology. It now only looks at server pools that receive external web traffic so it can measure “buy and “sell” traffic, calling all other server pools not receiving external web traffic “shared”.
The company said it was making $337 million per megawatt last time around, but this metric has been fine tuned to measure Revenue per megawatt hour now to represent total consumption per quarter and year rather than quarterly averages.
The auction giant had 52,075 servers then, which is up to 54,011 servers now. It was consuming 18 megawatts of power to support 112.3 million active users; now it consumes 19.08MW for 116.2m active users. Next quarter will paint a clearer picture of revenue per user, as on a Q/Q basis it seems to have dropped $1 from $15 to $14. For last year, the company showed revenue of $54 per user, and $117,000 per server.

DSE provides a vivid example of the productivity of data center infrastructure, which typically has construction costs of $5 million to $10 million per megawatt for large users like eBay. All the information is publicly available at dse.ebay.com

Microsoft has announced new plans to significantly enhance their cloud services in Australia. The company has announced the planned expansion of a new Windows Azure major region for Australia. When completed, this new major region will enable the delivery of Windows Azure services locally from Australia.

At present, Windows Azure customers in Australia are served form Singapore but the company now plans to build two data centres in Australia to service them. The exact locations of the two data centres have not been disclosed but who were are thought to be in Melbourne and Sydney. Mycroft hinted as much in a blog post from Tony Bowers, the company’s server and tools group lead who posted that “The new Windows Azure major region in Australia will consist of two sub-regions located in New South Wales and Victoria. These two locations will be geo-redundant, offering customers the ability to back up their data across two separate locations, both within Australia.”
The post went on to outline that “This approach is important for organisations like iCareHealth Australia, a provider of clinical care and medication management software. iCareHealth plan to take advantage of Australian-based services to achieve enhanced performance and reduced total cost of ownership, all while maintaining high levels of security and data sovereignty. As Chris Gray, Managing Director, says, “Windows Azure services will help iCareHealth deliver the electronic tools to nursing and care staff to assist them in their work of delivering consistent, high quality care to an increasingly larger number of elderly Australians, and those with special needs”.

Digital Realty has announced that it has contracted with Uptime Institute to achieve Tier III certification for 20 of its new data centre projects worldwide.  To date, five newly completed Turn-Key FlexSM data centres have received Tier III certification, including two projects in Sydney and two in Melbourne, Australia, and one data centre in Trumbull, Connecticut.
"As a global developer, operator and long-term owner of enterprise-quality data centres, we have long since designed our Turn-Key Flex solution to meet rigorous engineering and reliability standards," said Jim Smith, chief technology officer for Digital Realty.  "Working with Uptime Institute to obtain Tier III certifications for these new projects further demonstrates our commitment to meeting these high standards on behalf of our customers."
Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System as a means to effectively evaluate data centre infrastructure in terms of a business' requirements for system availability. The Tier Classification System provides the data centre industry with a consistent method to compare typically unique, customized facilities based on expected site infrastructure performance, or uptime. Furthermore, Tiers enable companies to align their data centre infrastructure investment with business goals specific to growth and technology strategies

SEGRO, a leading owner, asset manager and developer of modern warehousing, light industrial and data centre properties, has announced that Paragon Internet Group has taken 14,680 sq ft on the Slough Trading Estate on a 15 year lease to accommodate its first dedicated data centre facility.
Paragon is based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  It runs three popular UK web hosting companies, including Tsohost.com and Vidahost.com.  With over 50,000 clients, Paragon's network hosts over 200,000 active sites.  As a result of strong organic growth, Paragon requires a dedicated custom built data centre and has chosen to locate this facility on the Slough Trading Estate.
David Drummond, SEGRO's Head of Data Centres, said: "This latest data centre signing confirms the pre-eminence of the Slough Trading Estate for data centre operators.  Companies like Paragon are attracted to the Trading Estate thanks to its close proximity to London, connectivity, dual power supply and high levels of security, all of which are critical factors for data centre operators in deciding where best to locate their operations.
In order to meet Paragon's timescales we are refurbishing an existing unit on the Trading Estate, which only recently became vacant and which will provide Paragon with a mix of office and data centre space for their new operations.  Completion is due at the end of May 2013.
Adam Smith, Technical Director at Paragon, said: "Thanks to our rapid growth we have decided to build our own data centre facility rather than relying on further co-location over the coming years.  In addition to wanting to be able to move in quickly, we were looking for a location which has available power and is close to other network providers; giving us both capacity and resilience.  We are delighted to have found such a location with SEGRO.
The refurbished space will provide us with office accommodation to house our growing team of staff as well as space within which to fit-out a multimillion pound Tier 3+, 2N data centre."
Including this latest deal with Paragon, SEGRO now has 27 data centres in its portfolio, occupying 1,598,000 sq ft.  19 of these are located on the Slough Trading Estate.

Australia is one of the most advanced data centre services market in the Asia Pacific region in terms of market size. Frost & Sullivan estimates that 40% or 200,000 sq m of approximately 500,000 sq m of data centre space in Australia is outsourced. In 2012, the average revenue was around A$3,000 per sq m. Over the past decade, this market opportunity has attracted many leading global data centre service providers to establish a local presence in Australia.
Significant data centre build outs are occurring across Australia in response to the strong growth in data usage, the demand for local data centres and the increasing propensity of Australian organisations to outsource data centre operations. Frost & Sullivan new analysis, Australian Data Centre Services Market 2013 finds that the market will reach revenues of over A$1.5 billion by 2019. The growth rate of data centre outsourcing and the need for greater data centre space will continue to stimulate demand, providing significant growth opportunities for most service providers.

Netmagic Solutions, India's only data centre infrastructure lifecycle Management Company and subsidiary of NTT Communications has announced that it is building a 100,000-sq ft of net floor space data centre that will supply Bangalore's constrained market for high quality data centre space. According to the company press release, the new data centre in Electronic City, "India Bangalore 2 Data Center" will be operational by December 2013. The company anticipates the capacity to be utilized by large IT/ITES companies looking for scalable and high quality data centre space for their R&D centres as well as their end customers' space requirements.
The data centre will add to the growing number of NTT Com's world class data centres globally. NTT Com which is a member of NTT group, which is ranked No.1 in telecom industry in the Fortune Global 500, runs more than 140 data centres globally under its newly launched Nexcenter brand and holds a majority stake in Netmagic Solutions. This is the first data centre in India to have benefitted from the collaborative engineering and operational expertise of NTT Com and Netmagic.
Netmagic has 7 data centres in India including 4 in Mumbai and one each in Bangalore, Noida (Delhi-NCR) and Chennai.

A site earmarked for development into a data centre in Tseung Kwan O - and up for tender next month - is expected to attract keen bidding interest as there is a shortage of such service centres in the city, say property agents. "Market demand for data centres is very strong, and their development is attractive to investors who are looking for high rental yields and long-term investment," said Reggie Lai Yui-chung, project planning manager at Billion Development, a developer that focuses on office and industrial buildings.

"Average rents at Exchange Square in Central are currently about HK$150 per sq ft. But rents in a data centre in Tseung Kwan O could reach about HK$300 per sq ft," he said. The Lands Department will release a 1.08 hectare site at Wan Po Road in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate for tender next month. It will be the first government tender of a site specified for development into a data centre, although Google already has a site under construction in the area. Several other companies, including HSBC and Japanese telecom giant NTT, already operate data centres there.

BT has started to source 100% of its electricity in the UK from renewable energy, after signing an agreement with npower, making it one of the largest UK commercial companies to do so. According to a company press release, BT has calculated that this amount of electricity from non-renewable sources would equate to a carbon footprint of around one million tonnes of CO2 a year.

As part of its Better Future strategy, BT’s ambition is to source energy, including electricity, from renewable sources, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat, to help BT reduce its overall carbon footprint. During the 2011/12 financial year, BT consumed 2.3 Gigawatt hours of energy running its UK networks, data centres and offices, equivalent to 0.76% of all the electricity used in the UK.
BT has also set a Net Good goal, which will help customers reduce carbon emissions by at least three times the full carbon impact of our business by 2020. To deliver against the net good goal, BT will reduce its overall carbon footprint through energy reduction in its own operations, help lower its supplier’s carbon footprint and decrease the consumption of devices provided to customers. BT will develop its portfolio of services such as conferencing to help customers reduce their emissions from travel, as well as heating, carbon emissions and other forms of energy consumption.

TIME dotCom Bhd, the country’s second largest fixed line telecommunications network and solutions provider after Telekom Malaysia Bhd is expecting between 25% and 27% contribution for this year’s earnings from its completed major acquisitions, Chief Executive Officer Afzal Abdul Rahim has said.
Last year, the company acquired three data centre companies – AIMS Group, Global Transit Communications and Global Transit Ltd.Data centres are the engine of our revenue. Almost 95% of our growth comes from it. “Not only have the data centre business, all of our sectors recorded strong performances,” he told reporters after the company’s annual general meeting. For its first quarter results, TIME dotCom posted an operating profit of RM31.4 million, an increase of RM10.2 million a year ago.

A data centre in Sweden has cut its energy bills by a million dollars a year using seawater to cool its servers, though jellyfish are an occasional hazard. Data centre company, Interxion uses water pumped from the Baltic Sea to cool the IT equipment at its facilities in Stockholm. The energy used to cool IT equipment is one of the costliest areas of running a data centre. Companies have traditionally used big, mechanical chillers, but some are turning to outside air and evaporative techniques as lower-cost alternatives.
Seawater is another option, and apparently an effective one. Interxion recouped its initial investment after about a year, with the "cost" of the seawater equivalent to US$0.03 per kWh, said Lex Coors, Interxion's chief engineering officer, at the Uptime Institute's recent data centre conference. Interxion benefited greatly from the fact that there was already a network of pipes around Stockholm that provides seawater for cooling. It worked with a local partner to connect its data centre to that network, at a cost of about US$1 million.

As the number of local data centres are increasing on daily basis in Iran, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of Islamic Republic has decided to improve the facilities of data centres in country. During the recent years, a large number of governmental and non-governmental data centres have been opened in Iran.
“Currently, almost all data centres of Iran are using developed facilities and options to maintain their high reliability rates. However, we need to set a special budget for local data centres to improve their current facilities.” Mohammad Hossein Nami, the communication minister of Iran,. According to Nami, more websites will be moved their hosting services to Iran in near future. “By taking extra measure with regard to Iran-based data centres, more people will tend to use Iranian hosting services rather than foreigner ones.”

NetSuite has become the latest firm to confirm its intention to open a data centre in the UK in order to expand its footprint for data storage, following on from similar announcements from Salesforce and Oracle. The firm's chief executive Zach Nelson said NetSuite intends to open the location within the next 12 months and the UK is the most likely location, although he admitted other areas such as Amsterdam were still in consideration.
The company is likely to partner with a data centre provider, possibly Savvis, for the offering, noting that the outlay should be about US$3 million to get up and running. The announcement comes after rival Salesforce announced its intention to open a UK data centre to make it easier for the firm to meet the needs of customers in Europe that have so far been wary of the cloud because of US data protection regulations.

Infinity has reached a major milestone in the establishment of Infinity Stratford, a data centre to be created in the heart of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. iCITY, a joint venture between Infinity and Delancey, has finalised its deal with the London Legacy Development Corporation to deliver a world-leading digital and creative hub. Infinity Stratford, will be one of the largest and most efficient data centres in Europe, according to a press release.
Infinity Stratford will open in 2015 providing clients with140,000 sq ft of net technical space supported by 40MVA of diversely connected power. Located close to the majority of the UK’s internet peering points, the data centre will also offer extremely low latency connections to the world’s telecommunications networks. It will support the flourishing digital and creative businesses within iCITY as well as being perfectly located for the City of London and Docklands markets.
iCITY will transform the former Press and Broadcast Centres into a world-class centre of innovation and enterprise. It will drive the regeneration of east London and help to stimulate long-term economic growth in the UK. The deal announced by iCITY takes total investment in the Press and Broadcast Centres to £1billion.

NEXTDC has announced that it has achieved practical completion of the base building for its Sydney (S1) data centre facility. The achievement of practical completion means that the base building works have reached the stage where the builder/developer certifies that they have been completed in accordance with the contract, except for minor omissions and defects.
Base building practical completion for S1 confirms that it remains on track for a facility go-live date for customer occupation in September 2013, with the data centre operational fit-out continuing on schedule.
This milestone also represents another important achievement in the Company’s capital recycling program and relationship with the Asia Pacific Data Centre Group. Achieving practical completion for the S1 facility triggers the payment by APDC of the S1 Development Fee of A$45.5 million to NEXTDC. Under previously announced arrangements with APDC, NEXTDC has leased the S1data centre land and building from APDC for an initial term of 15 years with options for up to another 25 years. 
Commenting on the practical completion milestone, NEXTDC CEO Craig Scroggie said, “reaching practical completion of the base building as per our projected schedule demonstrates the ability of our team to deliver on time and on budget. We are looking forward to the official opening of S1 to customers in September.”

Data centre facility operators should be involved right from the start of the datacentre development process. Traditionally, datacentre operators are brought in at a later stage of a datacentre’s lifecycle, but to optimise IT energy efficiency and minimise infrastructure complications they must be involved during the planning and design phase, according to The Green Grid. The global consortium dedicated to advancing resource efficiency in datacentres has created a whitepaper which emphasises the importance of involving the facility operator at the early and more critical stages of a datacentre's lifecycle.

Organisations must think strategically about every stage of their datacentre lifecycle and minimise the risk of complications in the later stages if they want to optimise their green IT strategy, according to the Green Grid. But most enterprises have a datacentre development team for the planning and design tasks. This team selects the site and designs the critical infrastructure systems within a datacentre, and the facility operators are involved later on just for the day-to-day management of the data centre.

Digiweb Group have  announce that Viatel and VTLWaveNet have joined its group, creating a pan-European full-service telecommunications provider, with operations in United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy.
Digiweb, headquartered in Dublin, is a leading ICT and managed solutions provider, offering multi-site MPLS data networks, IP and traditional voice services, cloud computing, and data centre services to its enterprise, wholesale and government clients. Viatel, operating from London, provides critical fibre connectivity, high speed bandwidth and managed services to blue-chip carrier, corporate and government clients across Europe, having invested US$1.5 billion in constructing Europe’s leading low latency independent carrier fibre and duct network, connecting 34 cities over 8,500km of network.
Certain investors in Viatel including Morgan Stanley are rolling their investment in Viatel into Digiweb Group, and investing additional equity, which will fund the introduction of new services to its expanded client base.  The group will continue to seek opportunities for consolidation in the market to deliver differentiated, exceptional service offerings leveraging wholly owned independent infrastructure.
The Group will continue to be led by CEO Colm Piercy, with Lucy Woods, the outgoing Viatel CEO joining the Board of Directors of Digiweb Group.
The Digiweb Group will now deliver an extensive portfolio of Managed, Voice and Data services over metro fibre networks in 12 of Europe’s largest cities and financial centres and at 185 Points of Presence over its wholly-owned independent fibre across 8 countries. The group also operates 2 diverse submarine cables, and offers key connectivity on routes across Ireland, UK and continental Europe, with close proximity to African and Asian fibre landing stations.
The Group’s carrier and wholesale business will operate under the Viatel and VTLWavenet brands, while the enterprise and retail business divisions will trade as Digiweb. With a combined workforce of 200 and revenues of US$78 million the Group generates operating profits exceeding US$10 million annually.

Oracle has announced the opening of a new data centre in the UK to support the government’s G-Cloud initiative, following a similar move by Salesforce.com earlier this month. Oracle already has a general-purpose data centre in Linlithgow, Scotland, but the new data centre located in the Thames Valley – said to be Equinix Slough - will be ring-fenced specifically to serve the government, which is one of Oracle's biggest clients in the UK.

When it comes on stream in June, the data centre will support the provision of cloud services to the UK government, including services procured via the G-Cloud Framework and CloudStore catalogue, to which Oracle is a supplier. "We applaud the G-Cloud programme and believe it represents a significant step change in the provision of public sector IT services,” said Oracle president Mark Hurd

PT Data Center Infrastructure Indonesia in partnership with Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, Have announced the opening of its data centre facility located at Cibitung, West Java. Built and operated by PT DCI, the new data centre will provide premium interconnection and data centre services for local and global customers through Platform Equinix.
Located at a prime industry complex within West Java, the new data centre will provide significant capacity of approximately 65,000 gross sq ft. The partnership, which was first announced in October 2012, will provide Indonesian customers with access to 4,000 enterprises, cloud, digital content and financial companies, including over 900 network service providers that currently are housed in Equinix data centres around the world. Equinix’s global customers will also be able to extend their market reach into Indonesia while enjoying a similar level of availability and reliability in Indonesia through PT DCI, as they do within Equinix International Business Exchange data centres.
As part of the partnership Equinix has provided extensive advisory support to PT DCI in the design and operations of the PT DCI data centre and will continue to provide operational support to DCI and their Indonesian and global customers to ensure that they receive the same services, support and reliability they would experience in other Equinix IBX data centres. PT DCI has implemented disaster recovery response measures to comply with regulatory guidelines for disaster recovery and continuity of operations. For example, the new data centre is staffed by experienced technicians who will safeguard equipment and provide technical support for customers

AN ANONYMOUS RESEARCHER took control over some 420,000 Internet connected-devices in order to “map the whole Internet in a way nobody had done before.”

The researcher came up with several beautiful still and moving images, which shows where people around the world log-in to the Internet, and at what time. See Link to animated images.

Vendor-neutral data centre operator Teraco Data Environments has secured a R200m medium-term funding facility from Absa’s corporate and investment banking division. Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk says the funding will allow Teraco to meet the demand created by growth of the Internet and cloud computing in the region.
In recent years, Teraco has expanded its footprint to three data centres in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, which combined comprise 6,6MW of power plant, powering 4,000sq m of operating data centre space. Teraco is also home to Internet peering exchange NAPAfrica. Teraco finance chief Jan Hnizdo says the Absa facility will allow for continued expansion of available space in Teraco’s data centres and there are plans to expand the Cape Town and Johannesburg data centres by a further combined 4MW of power and 3 000 sq m of operating data centre space.

The Indian IT infrastructure market, comprising of server, storage and networking equipment, will total US$2.1 billion in 2013, growing 9.7% compared to 2012, according to Gartner.

The Indian IT infrastructure market is driven by hardware refresh, optimization and consolidation efforts. New data centre build out, primarily driven by service providers, is providing added impetus to this market. The server market accounts for the biggest chunk of the market totalling 753 million in 2013 and forecast to total US$962.3 million in 2017. Increased uptake of x86 based technologies, coupled with continued investment in virtualization, will drive server growth. Virtualization is extending beyond servers and is setting the stage for private cloud adoption in many of the leading organizations.

Meninx Technologies has opened a new data centre in Enfidha, Tunisia. The data centre has at present 250 sq m of technical space which is capable of being expanded to some 1000 sq m. A further 250 sq m of offices are also available to customers to provide work space near their computer equipment
Meninx Technologies offers IT hosting and telecommunications equipment to its customers with the best physical security, energy, climate and connectivity ensuring business continuity.

India has been witnessing loads of data from Smartphone and internet users who keep networking on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But custodians of such data such as Facebook, Google or Amazon still don’t have a single data centres in the country. Google which receives loads of data is reportedly said to be opening a centre in Singapore. Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco, Citrix, Rackspace and GoDaddy have all set their data centres in the city state.
Though Facebook does not own a data centre in India, this year, at the end of March, it saw 78 million active users in India, which is a growth of 50% from a year ago. According to a Facebook spokesman (as reported by TOI), “With regard to considering Asia or India as a destination, we’re always evaluating potential new sites as we expand our infrastructure, but we don’t have anything else to announce”.

South Korea will set up a new big data centre to help its industry catch up with global technology giants. This will be the country's first centre which allows anyone to refine and analyse big data.  South Korea's ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said it will work with the National Information Society Agency (NIA) to build it.
The science ministry said South Korea's big data technology may be two to five years behind that of global technology companies such as Google and Amazon, lacking the proper infrastructure and experience to thrive in the relatively new but promising field. "We expect our new centre to become a 'test bed' for big data-related businesses and a means to foster researchers at universities," a ministry official said. "We're planning to create a basic solution so that anyone can use our service to analyze big data."

As the Windows Azure cloud expands across central Washington, the physical building has all but disappeared. Lightweight enclosures filled with servers, known as ITPACs, sit under the barest of skeleton of a facility. They are self-contained data centers, assembled in days, housed on a concrete slabs and attached to a power “spine” supplying connections to the grid and the Internet. It’s completely open to the air, and in production.
With the latest phase of its data center in Quincy, Microsoft is getting out of the air conditioning business and deploying thousands of servers inside factory-built modules, which can be installed in days and allow the company to reach new heights of energy efficiency. The ITPACs take advantage of the natural environment in Quincy, allowing cool air to flow through the modules and cool the servers powering the Azure cloud.

One Campus, Three Experiences
Walking through the Quincy campus provides three very different experiences. After passing through security, you encounter Microsoft’s first facility on the six-year old campus, a typical data center in an immense concrete shell. The next phase is a lightweight building housing ITPACs. The end of the trip takes you to open air – yet even here, the Microsoft cloud continues to grow.
After passing through a gate that could stop a truck, you arrive at the 470,000 foot concrete building, constructed by Microsoft in 2007. The Columbia campus feels like a fortress, with a gauntlet of security that includes a staffed access gate, biometrics and a mantrap corridor (which earns its name from the doors at both ends, which cannot open at the same time, limiting access to ) . After you’re cleared, as a guest you receive a badge that expires after a set time, with the word “VOID” appearing out of nowhere. This is your traditional enterprise data center with all the trimmings, and then some. It features all the physical redundancy, the giant generators, and the massive UPS rooms you would expect to be hidden beyond such security.
Once you walk outside, you begin to see the evolution of Microsoft’s data center design. The next building you enter isn’t really a building at all, but a steel and aluminum framework. Inside the shell are pre-manufactured ITPAC modules. Microsoft has sought to standardize the design for its ITPAC – short for Information Technology Pre-Assembled Component – but also allows vendors to work with the specifications and play with the design. These ITPACs use air side economization, and there are a few variations.
Essentially, they are data centers in a box. Cooling is supplied by fresh air and the equivalent of a garden hose. Fresh air is drawn into the enclosure through louvers lining the side of the module, which functions as a huge air handler with racks of servers inside. Each IT module is also equipped with an evaporative cooling system in which air passes through a moist media filter. The system uses just 1 percent of what the traditional data center uses.

Inside A ‘Secret Garden’ of Servers
These ITPACs are highly efficient, and quick to deploy. The shell around these first ITPACs is wall-screened.
However, by the end of the trip, you’re back in open air, in a “Secret Garden” of servers. The building has disappeared, but each ITPAC unit acts as its own steel perimeter. You’re still on camera, you’re still in a highly secure area, but it feels wide open.
Just as the security evolves, so does the power infrastructure.  Cloud servers drive a whole different design, down to the components.
There are generators for these ITPACs in Quincy that have never been used. The modules fail over to other modules in a compartmentalized practice known as “failing small.” The company says it costs too much to remove and resell the surplus generators.
The fact that these generators have never been used highlights Microsoft’s vision for the future of data center operations; resiliency through software. The company is asking its developers to think in cloud terms, and challenge the traditional ways of building redundancy through software. There are centralized systems monitoring the health of the network, allowing Microsoft to communicate with other facilities and manage failover between sites in an emergency.
Data center facilities have become glamorous. But in Quincy, advances in software are driving a sense of minimalism in the physical design. The ITPACs have two sides; the hotter side contains the power distribution. Air goes up and ejects. On cold days, it’s recirculated. On warm days, a spray of water is used.

Simpler Infrastructure That Can Be Replicated
The evolution isn’t towards more physical redundancy, more moving pieces or more imposing data centers, but rather a simple infrastructure that is easily replicable – modular data centers that live outside, leveraging free air cooling. Microsoft is still in the early stages of this approach, but the outdoor ITPACs are proving very resilient thus far.
Microsoft has taken leaps and bounds in Quincy, having rethought its definition of a data center. In a world where providers are building facilities with redundancy in mind, it begins to look like unnecessary complexity. Microsoft’s “Generation 5 ” design is about convergence. All design is standardized and it’s all running on software. The company is trying to commoditize for the industry, and says it is committed to sharing the insights it derives from an immense R&D budget, a lot of which goes into data centers.
The implications for the industry are significant. Microsoft is taking these ITPACs and thinking outside the box (or facility). Think of Wyoming, where they’re testing a biogas-powered data center with a small modular installation. Matching increasingly efficient and resilient design with renewable sources of energy may mean the data cneter industry will no longer be misunderstood by the mainstream media, who sees large generators and thinks of data centers as energy-consuming, polluting monsters.

The Quincy campus shows the evolution of data center design. The traditional colo facility isn’t going to go away any time soon due to enterprise requirements. However, the thinking around cloud is allowing design to shift into software-driven resiliency as the way of the future.

TelecityGroup has announced it has acquired SadeceHosting, the leading provider of data centre and hosted services in Turkey.Sadece offers a range of data centre and hosting services and currently operates a 1MW data centre, with a further 1MW of expansion potential.
The Group has paid a consideration of £25 million in cash for Sadece, with a provision for the payment of up to another £4 million, based on achievement of certain financial objectives and consistent with the base case multiple.
Turkey is a fast-developing market, with the prospect of becoming a major internet hub, due both to its large and rapidly growing domestic digital economy and its unique strategic location between Europe and Asia. Although currently smaller than the Group’s other markets in terms of developed data centre capacity, it has the fastest internet traffic growth rate in Europe and offers compelling growth dynamics. Entry into the market enhances TelecityGroup's medium-term growth potential, bringing management expertise and a strong customer base in this exciting region.
Michael Tobin, CEO of TelecityGroup, said: “Turkey is one of the fastest growing digital economies in the world and Sadece has played a major role in enabling this growth. The combination of our data centre expertise and Sadece’s service leadership creates a highly attractive choice for customers, both from the domestic Turkish market and international businesses seeking to grow in this region. I am delighted to welcome Selçuk Saraç and the team at Sadece to TelecityGroup and look forward to working together.”
Selçuk Saraç, CEO of Sadece, who will become Managing Director of TelecityGroup’s Turkish operation said: “This is an exciting development for Sadece and the development of Turkey’s digital economy. Combining our business with Europe’s leading provider of data centres will be a great boost and will help us take advantage of the booming demand for hosting and data centre services in Turkey and beyond.”
In addition, TelecityGroup has also issue its latest Interim management statement, the highlights of which included Year-to-date financial performance and full year earnings outlook both continue to be in-line with management’s expectations; On-going customer driven expansion programme on-track, total customer power up to 90MW.
To date in 2013, additional capacity has been brought on-line in London and Helsinki, in-line with targeted progress. Together with the purchase of Sadece, this has taken total customer available power to 90MW. TelecityGroup’s total announced capacity across Europe is now 137MW. The majority of the Group’s expansion capacity will come on-line progressively over the next three years, in response to customer demand, giving the Group significant medium-term growth potential.
TelecityGroup continues to seek further growth capacity and has a pipeline of incremental expansion projects across its markets due to continued customer demand. An update on expansion plans will be provided along with the Group's first half results in July.

A “big data” health research centre at the University of Oxford has been announced as the latest to benefit from the government’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund. The Big Data Institute at the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, launched by Prime Minister David Cameron on 3 May, will be built using £10 million from the scheme, which is managed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Government funding will be matched by a £20 million donation from Chinese entrepreneur and philanthropist Li Ka-shing.The already complete first phase of the centre - the £35 million Target Discovery Institute - won another £10 million from the £300 million government scheme last year. It will house research generating data about disease using genomic and chemical screens, important for the early stages of drug discovery.

Claranet has opened a new data centre in Lisbon. Located in the Park of Nations, it will be the company’s third in the country. The space will have an initial capacity of 100 m2, with the possibility to expand in the near future.
Growth in cloud services has seen the Claranet Group respond to it, and in the past year, the company has increased the number of data centres from 16 to 20 in countries across Europe including the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Spain.

Ofcom will investigate BT over its dominance in the broadband market following complaints by rival TalkTalk. The complaint, alleges that BT has squeezed margins between its upstream costs and downstream prices. TalkTalk has complained that the telco is charging ISPs too much for access to its fibre network.
Investigations are in an early stage according to the regulator. Ofcom said that claims will be looked into before deciding if BT has a case to answer for. "In the initial phase of the investigation in Spring/Summer 2013, we expect to gather further information using our powers under the Competition Act 1998, and to analyse this information,” said the regulator in a statement. “We expect this initial analysis to inform consideration of whether and how to proceed further with the investigation, during Autumn/Winter 2013." BT said that it was disappointed that Ofcom has opened the case and claims there is no evidence.

Online and mobile gaming is exploding. It could have a revenue share of US$48 billion in 2016, equivalent to 55%t of the entire game industry (Digi-Capital Report 2012). According to a new survey from LeaseWeb USA, a leading IaaS provider, six out of 10 gamers experience unplanned server outages while playing their favorite games, and 20% of responded they get “angry”, “furious” or “outraged” about it. In addition, 84% of online gamers have had games stutter, freeze, or crash on them while in the middle of game-play. The survey was conducted online and on the floor at last month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“Interrupted play tends to leave most gamers annoyed, and considering the rapid growth potential of the online gaming industry, investing in reliable infrastructure is becoming more important than ever,” said Paul Grimwood, Business Development Manager of LeaseWeb and the man responsible for the company’s gaming operations. “Having a reliable, scalable infrastructure is an important factor that will have an impact on determining the successful gaming companies from the not so successful.”

The Private UK investment banking and private equity group Evans Randall has paid €18.25m to the developer of the Telecity data centre near Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The centre totals some 13,750 sq m and is let on a 20-year lease. Telecity is Europe’s leading provider of premium carrier-neutral colocation data centres. This will be Evans Randall’s second data centre asset, following the purchase in 2012 of Sovereign House in London’s Docklands, also leased to Telecity.

Inteliquent has announced that it has sold its global data services business to GTT for US$54.5 million. The transaction consideration includes US$52.5 million of cash and US$2.0 million of commercial services that GTT will provide to Inteliquent over three years. The transaction signed and closed on April 30, 2013.
The global data business sold by Inteliquent generated revenues of US$69.5 million in 2012 and serves over 1,100 customers. The data business has over 120 points of presence in 24 countries and provides IP Transit and Ethernet services. The data business is one of the largest global Ethernet interconnection networks, a top-five global IP Transit service provider and a leading IPv6 network. The data business is largely comprised of the assets acquired by Inteliquent through its purchase of Tinet S.p.A. in 2010.
Ed Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Inteliquent, stated, "We are pleased to conclude the sale of our data business. We look forward to working to grow our core voice services business, to which we will dedicate all of our efforts going forward. This transaction also affords us with significant balance sheet flexibility to consider other value-enhancing alternatives for our shareholders."
Richard D. Calder Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of GTT, stated, "Acquiring the Inteliquent data business accelerates our established growth curve towards becoming a more asset-based network solution provider, capable of delivering complex, integrated network solutions globally."

Ealing Council in the UK  have approved plans for the construction of a new substation at Perivale Park, West London, that will bring an additional 12 MVA of power to the site in Q3 2013.
The substation will facilitate the delivery of power to the Perivale Data Centre. The 12 MVA will be energised in Q3 2013. Bracknell Data  Centre's substation follows along behind this and 10 MVA will be energised later this year supporting the 80,000 sq ft building. Construction of the substation at Perivale will begin on site in mid June 2013

Datacom is set  to officially open the Kapua Data Centre, a Tier-3+ data centre covers 11,000 sq m of land and has the capacity to house over 920 racks across 5 data floors with room for further significant expansion.

Datacom has 9 data centres across its Australasian operations. The paired and purpose built facilities of Hamilton’s Kapua and Orbit in Auckland, represent the best geographically diverse high tier data centre facilities in NZ and NZ$90million of infrastructure investment from the local IT services company.  Greg Davidson Datacom NZ CEO, says, “It’s a good day for New Zealand enterprise and for Datacom. We now have the largest footprint of purpose built IT data centre services in New Zealand and beyond the infrastructure Kapua is the neutral ground for a collaborative IT community.