Investment

Cloudrise is taking 2022 by storm

Cloudrise continues to make waves with a flurry of exciting news to kick-off 2022. Cloudrise is pleased to announce the acquisition of CyberOrchard, an information security managed service organisation located in the United Kingdom. Cloudrise CEO, Rob Eggebrecht, shares his thoughts: “The merger of the two companies brings a breadth of knowledge and expertise to Cloudrise, paving the way to expand our portfolio of data protection services to the global market.” As part of the acquisition, Jason Bird, CyberOrchard’s Founder and CEO, has been named Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Cloudrise. Bird has over 25 years of experience in cybersecurity, managed services, data governance, and privacy. “Data protection is becoming more complex every day, and at Cloudrise we believe collaboration is the path to better protection for our customers. We are partnering with the strongest data-centric technology companies to bring innovative solutions to our customers, such as Netskope, AWS, Digital Guardian, Microsoft, OneTrust, Varonis, BigID, and Veritas, just to name a few,” comments Bird. This news comes just a week after Netskope named Cloudrise as their Global Services Partner of the Year. “This achievement illustrates Cloudrise’s commitment to delivering innovative service offerings to customers worldwide,” says Joe Infantino, Chief Operating Officer at Cloudrise. Additionally, Cloudrise is pleased to announce that CRN has named Cloudrise on its Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Managed Security 100 category for 2022. Winners are recognised for helping end users increase efficiency, simplify solutions, and maximise their return on investments.

EDGNEX breaks ground on data centre facility in Riyadh, KSA

EDGNEX has identified Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), as the next location for its collection of data centre facilities. EDGNEX’s data centre will support the KSA’s Vision for 2030 by providing a foundation for local and regional digital transformation and innovation, while aiming to attract global multi-nationals to the country.   The data centre will be located at Industrial City 2 which is just 19km from the city centre and 47km from the airport. The facility’s close proximity to Riyadh’s city centre will provide low-latency access to the entire KSA market, and customers will benefit from high-fibre density and connectivity options. The new data centre will have a maximum IT load of 20 Megawatts (MW) and sit on a 17,720sqm plot. The facility will be ready to go live in Q3 2023. “The KSA is one of the most exciting and dynamic ICT markets in the MENA region. The government of the KSA has demonstrated its commitment to innovation and we are proud to be supporting its long-term vision for digital adoption. We want to help attract hyperscalers and innovators from around the world and give them a foundation for growth,” says Niall McLoughlin, Senior Vice President of parent company DAMAC Group. “This is a tremendous opportunity to serve growing local demand while offering world-class facilities to players from across the globe. We look forward to growing together with partners and customers in the KSA.” EDGNEX is a digital infrastructure provider that identifies and invests in the next digital hubs. It identifies markets where new investment in digital infrastructure can have maximum impact on local economies, enterprises and end users.  “The KSA is one of the most connected countries in the MENA region and Riyadh offers an ideal hub for connecting Asia, Africa, the GCC and Europe. We see it as a hyperconnected crossroads and one of the most strategic locations for data centre investment in the region. As we grow our footprint locally in MENA and across the globe, we remain committed to developing digital infrastructure in the KSA and enabling the growth of Riyadh as an ICT hub for the region,” adds Niall.  With an estimated population of 33.4 million and over half of those being under 30, the KSA has a growing number of everyday tech users who demand high connectivity performance at all times.  This scalable colocation facility will be ready to serve local customers, hyperscalers and other wholesale colocation requirements to eliminate the need for their own facilities. The KSA national fibre network offers terrestrial connectivity to all major Gulf markets and acts as a gateway to key regional submarine cable landing stations.  

Royal Bank of Scotland and SBRC partner to extend cyber training reach

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) and the Royal Bank of Scotland have formalised a partnership whereby the bank will offer access to SBRC-delivered cyber security workshops to its corporate and commercial customers. While cyber security investment in the UK has hit record levels over the last 12 months, in the same time period the National Cyber Security Centre identified an increase in cyber related incidents, highlighting the continued need for cyber education for organisations of all sizes and sectors. Already an SBRC member organisation for five years, the Royal Bank of Scotland has been keen to increase the knowledge it imparts to its corporate and commercial customers around key trends, including cyber security. Given the notable increase in cyber related incidents, the bank worked with SBRC to understand how its business customer base could become more prepared to mitigate the impact of digital crime. For the first time, the Royal Bank’s local authority and higher education customers will gain access to this additional programme. This will include invitations to attend Exercise in a Box workshops taking place in June and Executive Scenario Planning sessions which will be adapted according to suit each interested organisation. Malcolm Buchanan, Managing Director, Corporate & Commercial Banking, Scotland at Royal Bank of Scotland adds: “While all our customers have been impacted from the grips of the pandemic over the last two years, the everyday challenges we faced before it have not disappeared – including cyber hacks and scams. The threat of cyber security related incidents is higher than ever, and so if we can support a proportion of our customer base by providing guidance and access to education to ensure they don’t become the next victim – we will. By partnering with the SBRC, we will not only be able to directly introduce our customers to cyber experts but will be able to extend the education of so many of our local authority and higher education customers who want the skills and expertise to address the threat at hand.” Jude McCorry, CEO of SBRC says: “Time and time again, we see fear overcome individuals and organisations when the topic of becoming cyber ready is raised. The proactivity being shown by the Royal Bank in extending the already strong relationship with the SBRC is to be commended. This partnership that we have created with the Royal Bank and the steps they are taking to support their customers is unique. Through the programmes and workshops that we will deliver, it will contribute to will further extending the cyber awareness of organisations across Scotland.”

CityFibre partners with STL to support rapid nationwide network rollout

CityFibre has signed a strategic multi-year, multi-million-pound deal with STL. The partnership will see STL supply CityFibre with high fibre count Celesta Intelligently Bonded Ribbon (IBR) Cables with Stellar bend-insensitive fibre and ribbon optimised joint enclosures. CityFibre is currently engaged in a £4bn investment programme to rollout dense Full Fibre infrastructure to up to 8m homes by 2025. Its rollout continues to accelerate with deployments underway across more than 60 major metro areas, spanning 285 cities, towns and villages. STL’s sustainably produced and high-capacity IBR ribbon cable solution will deliver significantly faster installations as CityFibre’s build programme continues to scale. James Thomas, Director of Supply Chain at CityFibre, comments: “In such a competitive market for high class partners, we are delighted to have formed this partnership with STL. Working together we will secure the technology and supplies CityFibre needs to achieve its ambitious targets. STL’s IBR cabling technology and other supplies will play a key role in accelerating our build in more locations this year and beyond.” Paul Atkinson, CEO at Optical Networking Business, STL says: “Our integrated optical connectivity solution with optical fibre, cable and interconnect products, will help CityFibre achieve accelerated network rollout with high scalability and agility, while keeping the overall costs low. We are confident that a combination of optical technologies and interconnect can change the game for FTTx at an industry level with superfast deployment, provisioning and enhanced network performance.”

Virgin Media O2 expands ultrafast gigabit network to homes in Cricklewood

Virgin Media O2 has announced it has connected more than 17,000 homes in Cricklewood, London to its ultrafast network, bringing the benefits of gigabit broadband to tens of thousands more people for the first time. As part of its ‘Project Lightning’ network expansion programme, Virgin Media O2 is expanding its network to bring ultrafast broadband, TV and phone services to more residents and small businesses. Cricklewood is the latest location now able to access Virgin Media’s services, including Gig1 which offers top speeds of 1,130Mbps, 18 times faster than local average, and which is perfect for busy households working remotely, streaming TV shows and films, video calling friends and family and playing games online. Since 2015, Virgin Media O2 has extended its footprint to reach 340,000 more premises through its Project Lightning programme in London, and made gigabit broadband available to more than 6 million Londoners. This comes following more than £200 million of broadband investment in the city in recent years. Alongside its fixed network investment, this month Virgin Media O2 has also announced that it has made significant upgrades to its mobile network in London. Its 5G network in the capital has now extended to reach 64% of the population and last year the company upgraded 4G capacity in 41,228 postcodes across the city. Rob Evans, Managing Director of Fixed Network Expansion at Virgin Media O2, says: “We’ve been investing in Cricklewood to give thousands of residents access to the UK’s fastest widely available speeds – 18 times faster than the local average. “From hybrid working and video calls with friends, to VR and online gaming, our next-generation services offer customers everything they need to do more of what they love online.  Virgin Media O2 has committed to invest at least £10bn over the next 5 years in the UK and, building on the success of its existing fibre network expansion activity, is exploring options to go further and faster by deploying fibre to millions of additional homes across the country. In July 2021, the company announced it will upgrade its entire fixed network to full fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology with completion in 2028, capable of delivering symmetrical 10Gbps download and upload speeds and beyond. This will take place alongside its expansion programme that is bringing greater choice and competition to many areas that need it most. Virgin Media O2 recently launched its first ever joint product, Volt, enabling customers to supercharge their services and reap extra rewards simply by being customers of both Virgin Media and O2. Alongside double mobile data, roaming in 75 countries and up to £150 off a connected device, new and existing customers who take a Virgin Media broadband service and an eligible O2 Pay Monthly plan will receive a broadband speed boost to the next tier available – meaning customers on a 500mbps Virgin Media package could be boosted to Gig1 at no extra charge.

Node4 launches market-first managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution

Node4 has announced the launch of its new Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution. The new offering is possible because of Node4’s significant and sustained data centre investment — and was developed with technical input from Microsoft, Intel and Lenovo. The result is a revolutionary managed service offering that addresses the complexity, compliance, latency, and legacy technology challenges faced by businesses when migrating to a hybrid IT environment.  Node4’s Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution delivers five key benefits. It allows customers to:  Create their own Azure region in a Node4 data centre on dedicated infrastructure with similar APIs and multiple PaaS services. Use the same skills and tools to maintain consistency across the data centre and the Azure environment.Access cost-effective, high-performance Azure infrastructure via one of Node4’s data centres for performance-sensitive databases and workloads. Strengthen their business continuity proposition with logical separation and operator diversity.Unlock Azure benefits, including free security updates for EoL, Windows, and SQL Server versions across the hybrid environment. The solution, which utilises Microsoft Azure Stack HCI and Microsoft Azure Arc, is hosted in Node4’s state-of-the-art data centres. The offering also includes hot-node scalability — allowing customers to scale on demand without the long lead times often associated with hybrid infrastructure expansion. Node4 has achieved this industry-first by investing upfront in additional nodes within its data centres. This enables the company to deliver the first truly scalable, agile, and flexible Azure-based hybrid offering as a managed service.   Andrew Slater, Technology Practice Director - Cloud at Node4, says: “Our new Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution is a logical, intuitive offering. It allows businesses to migrate substantially more of their legacy infrastructure into an Azure environment without the challenges that often frustrate their digital transformation process. We predict many organisations will use the solution as a stepping-stone while migrating legacy VM environments to Azure. Others, with precise performance or data sovereignty needs, will maintain it as a long-term infrastructure component.”  Node4’s Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution introduces modern Azure tooling across the entire hybrid environment. This includes Site Recovery, Backup, Update Management, File Sync, Monitor and Security Center. Furthermore, because it’s a managed service, Node4 handles all the Azure infrastructure setup and configuration — and maintains the hardware in its data centre. Customers simply select the servers, support package, architecture, and stack environment that are right for them. Then, using the Node4-developed Azure Landing Zone, they can quickly and easily configure a hybrid network architecture that meets Microsoft’s best practice guidelines. This, in turn, ensures hybrid environments reach maturity and full functionality at a much faster pace.  A Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud with general purpose nodes starts at £5000 per month. This includes a three-node Azure Stack HCI cluster (n+1) with an ExpressRoute Circuit and Azure Landing Zone support — the cluster is built using the latest compute and storage technologies, optimised for performance. Apay Obang-Oyway, Territory Channel Sales Lead, Microsoft UK, concludes: “We congratulate Node4 on the launch of its Managed Azure Hybrid Cloud solution. This is an incredibly exciting new chapter for the business and the result of our extremely close ongoing working relationship. The solution’s ability to extend Azure functionality into hybrid environments and guide businesses at each stage of their digital transformation journey is ground-breaking. This kind of outside-the-box thinking demonstrates Node4’s steadfast commitment to helping businesses reap the full benefits of the Azure platform — and contributed to Node4 earning Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status.”

First large-scale data centre for the Baltic states

The largest and most energy efficient data centre in the region was opened recently in Estonia. The building that cost nearly €40m is the first of the three buildings to be built in the same area, all of which will contribute to the development of the Baltic e-commerce and digital societies. To the ordinary citizen, this means a smaller ecological footprint of data, and even better access to e-services. In addition, the opening of the building complex will multiply the data hosting export potential of the region. "Data centres are the physical foundation of our current and future digital society, without which our way of life and business activities would be unthinkable. Greenergy’s top-tier and high energy efficiency data centre will increase the competitiveness of the Estonian economy and will create the necessary infrastructure for the digital transformation", says the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Andres Sutt, after participating in the opening. According to him, up until now, there was no such high-level digital infrastructure in Estonia, and the new data centre will remarkably increase the competitiveness of the companies of this area. It will also create favourable conditions for foreign companies to offer their services on the Estonian or Baltic market. Founding the Greenergy Data Centres took more than five years to get from its inception to opening, and experts from six countries participated in the process. "The complex opened today conforms to all of the highest international security standards and aims at 25% higher energy efficiency than the market’s average," says Kert Evert, the person behind the idea of creating the data centre. "Technologically speaking, we are at the absolute top of the world." The first building spans 14,500 square metres. The total planned capacity of the complex is 31.5MW – in other words, the centre's electrical connections could cover the energy needs of a smaller town. As the data centre must be prepared for the unexpected and always function, every important support system of the complex is duplicated. In some places, back-up systems have their own back-up systems. For example, there will be as many as eight fibre optic connection cables entering the territory, and they will reach the building from four different sides. Security fences, roadblocks, rotating cameras with motion, and heat sensors take care of the data centre's security, and the entire complex is covered by a 360-camera surveillance system. Only those who are authorised will have access to the data centre, which will be, among other things, ensured by a biometric identification. The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund provided funding for building the facility.

BigChange appoints Paul Monaghan as Chief Sales Officer

BigChange has announced the appointment of Paul Monaghan as its first Chief Sales Officer. Paul is responsible for accelerating BigChange’s growth domestically and internationally. Paul joins BigChange from Lead Forensics, a business-to-business focused software provider, where he was Global Sales Director. Before that he led sales and channel activities across 22 countries for cloud collaboration company Intrado. His appointment is an important step in BigChange’s development. In February 2021, the company secured a £75 million investment from Great Hill Partners to support its growth ambitions. Paul Monaghan, Chief Sales Officer of BigChange, says: “It’s great to be joining BigChange, at this phase of its growth. We have an amazing platform that really transforms the way that our customers run their businesses. BigChange is a proven enabler of success and I’m excited by the prospect of driving growth and sustainability for field service firms worldwide.” Richard Warley, CEO of BigChange, says: “I’m very pleased to welcome Paul to BigChange to support our expansion plans and help more businesses grow stronger. He has a strong track record of serving customers, building high performing sales teams and delivering sustained growth for software companies.” 

Kao Data expands UK data centre footprint with 16MW facility in Slough

Kao Data has announced the availability of a 16 Megawatt (MW), carrier-neutral data centre in Slough, West London. The launch marks a new beginning for Kao Data following the recent investment of approximately £130 million from global infrastructure business Infratil Limited, and will expand its ultra-sustainable data centre platform into this globally significant data centre hub. The build, now underway, will adhere to the high-performance design, efficiency, and operational blueprint of Kao Data’s Harlow campus, providing customers with an SLA-backed PUE of <1.2, even at partial loads. From a sustainability standpoint, the new facility will use an ultra-efficient cooling system, be powered by 100% renewable energy, with its backup power generators powered by hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) from the outset, removing fossil fuels in their entirety. Further, the data centre will provide the industrial-scale capabilities that the Kao Data brand is well-known for. The facility is already set to become NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Centre certified and OCP-Ready, serving the needs of high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise customers, all of whom rely on the finest, Tier 3 equivalent environments to support and scale their mission-critical workloads. “The launch of our new Slough data centre offers data-intensive enterprises within the highly sought-after West London Availability Zone, the opportunity to benefit from significant new capacity, as well as the advantage of working with Kao Data’s award-winning, sustainable infrastructure and expert technical and operations teams,” says Lee Myall, CEO, Kao Data. “With this move we are excited to be strengthening our data centre footprint across the UK and establish ourselves within the world’s second largest data centre hub. Kao Data has seen tremendous growth over the last 12 months, and the launch of our Slough facility is the next step in our continuing development.” With a strong and varied existing customer base from key sectors, including financial services, life sciences, defence, artificial intelligence and the cloud, Kao Data’s expansion into the West of London presents its current colocation customers with increased diversity and resilience. Further, it offers new customers the immediate scope to quickly scale their existing colocation footprints and safeguard their future power provision. Finally, with the facility powered with 100% renewable energy, its back-up generators utilising renewable HVO fuel, and its power and cooling architectures providing an ultra-low PUE, Kao Data’s data centre will set new standards within Slough for sustainability.

Neterra listed as a key data centre investor in Central and Eastern Europe

Neterra is listed as a key data centre investor in Central and Eastern Europe, according to the report Central and Eastern Europe Data Centre Market - Industry Outlook & Forecast 2022-2027, published by the international information service provider GII. The list also includes Amazon, Microsoft, Equinix, Google, Digital Realty, NTT, Yandex and others. As a company that has been operating in the global market for 26 years, providing worldwide connectivity in a highly competitive environment, Neterra has been investing long-term and strategically in the construction and maintenance of independent, neutral data centres. Neterra provides its customers with first-class colocation, fast and secure connectivity, equipment and servers for rent, lower cooling costs, 24/7 support. Sofia Data Centre 1 (SDC 1) is in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was built in accordance with the requirements of TIER III. The building is specially designed for a data centre and meets the highest international standards. SDC Stolnik is part of the Stolnik Park Data Centre - the largest data centre and telecommunications hub in the region. It offers unlimited space for colocation and power. SDC Stolnik also has specially designed crypto-mining halls. SDC Ruse is the main point of presence of BFOR (Bulgarian Fiber Optics Route) - the shortest route between Romania and Turkey. In March 2022, Neterra is going to open its newest data centre, Sofia Data Centre 2 (SDC 2). It is located next to SDC 1, and its customers will benefit from the already established business and telecommunications infrastructure - connectivity with all existing Neterra customers and access to high-speed, secure and reserved international networks and routes. The first customers of SDC 2 receive a 10% discount from the standard colocation price. Through its data centres and the already established global network of points of presence in more than 180 countries, Neterra provides a wide portfolio of services: international connectivity and connection with some of the world's largest operators and content creators. SDC provides customers also with high-performance physical and cloud servers, DDoS attacks protection, backup services (BaaS). Thus, companies spend investment in expensive equipment, specialists and software, relying on impeccable technical and IT support.