Insights into Data Centre Investment & Market Growth

Cisco commits to help accelerate a more inclusive, digital United Kingdom

By 2030, a more inclusive digital society could add £168 billion to the UK economy. That is why Cisco has committed to help accelerate economic growth across the UK through digital inclusion and innovation. Through investment in partnerships, projects and initiatives focussed on creating opportunity for people, organisations, industries, and regions across the UK, Cisco will expand its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme, which has formed the core of Cisco’s decade long investment in UK innovation. Aligned to both the national and regional ambitions of the UK, the programme will focus on industries and public services best positioned to benefit from digital acceleration, aiming to support improvement on key issues such as digital skills, productivity, sustainability and the UK’s levelling up agenda. Guy Diedrich, Senior Vice President and Global Innovation Officer, Cisco comments “Today we mark a decade of collaboration between Cisco, the UK government, industry and academia to accelerate digital outcomes for the UK.” He adds, “From initiatives to train hundreds of thousands in digital skills, connect the most remote parts of the UK with 5G, and partnerships to foster a culture of innovation, we are helping cement the UK’s place as a leader in fields such as AI and quantum computing. We are extremely proud of what we have achieved together and delighted to be furthering our commitment to help the UK realise the potential of a more inclusive, digital economy - where no one is left behind.” New research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), commissioned by Cisco, finds that a more inclusive digital economy, that connects everyone in the UK, equips them with digital skills, and digitises key industries and public services, has the potential to not only add £168bn to the UK economy, but will provide societal, industrial and regional benefit. David Meads, Chief Executive, Cisco UK & Ireland says “As a nation, we have a heritage of invention that comes from all corners of the UK. With the power of technology, we believe that economic opportunity can follow that tradition.” He adds “Organisations are looking to digital to improve the way they work, operate, and compete on a global scale, but to fully embrace a more digital economy, with talent and innovation to support, there are fundamental issues that we must address. From the role of digital in creating more equitable opportunity and across the UK, to how we as a technology industry lean in to help close the digital skills gap.” Cisco’s CDA programme, which is a long-term partnership programme with governments, industry and academia, will focus on initiatives in sectors that underpin the UK economy and provide critical services that have opportunity to benefit from digital. From healthcare to education, utilities and transport infrastructure. In addition, the programme will align to emerging sectors – including those with a focus on technology to drive sustainable outcomes towards national net zero targets. To encourage innovation in industry and to recognise the need for support and guidance to bring solutions to life, Cisco will launch the first Fast Future Innovation Awards in the UK. From September, organisations will be able to enter to win one of three prizes to realise their ideas.

The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Lenovo announce partnership

A research agreement has now been signed between the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Lenovo to advance research in multiple Spanish and EU priority sectors for high-performance computing. Through this collaboration, Lenovo will invest $7 million over three years to advance precision medicine through the use of supercomputing, the design and development of open-source European chips and the creation of more energy-sustainable supercomputers and data centres. The event took place at the BSC-CNS headquarters with its Director, Mateo Valero, its Deputy Director, Josep Maria Martorell, and Executive Vice President of Lenovo and President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, Kirk Skaugen. Mateo Valero, Director of the BSC-CNS states: “I am very proud of this important collaboration with Lenovo as we continue our longstanding work together tackling the great challenges of these priority lines of research from the Spanish and European Commission's agenda. This research collaboration will generate significant returns for the region, not only human and scientific, but also technological and economic." Noam Rosen, EMEA Director, HPC & AI at Lenovo says, “We are excited to announce the agreement to jointly develop novel European supercomputing technologies for the exascale era, which extends from our six year partnership with BSC. Our shared goal is to embrace open architecture to support scientists and researchers with smarter, more efficient and sustainable supercomputing platforms. This agreement, and our investment contribution, are just the latest examples of Lenovo’s ongoing commitment to Europe, joining our new manufacturing facility in Hungary and the AI Innovation Centre Germany. Lenovo is passionate about helping researchers at BSC solve one of humanity’s greatest challenges and is proud to support BSC’s leadership driving European innovation in HPC.” Supercomputing: key to advancing precision medicine The exponential increase in the production of genomic data produces multiple petabytes of information, requiring the use of high-performance computing (HPC) resources for analysis, such as those of the MareNostrum supercomputer at the BSC-CNS. The efficient analysis of large-scale genomic data will be key to advancing precision medicine and the generation of new treatments against diseases such as cancer. Thus, one of the collaboration projects between Lenovo and the BSC-CNS is aimed at improving and accelerating precision medicine using supercomputing. In this context, the BSC-CNS team, led by the researcher Miquel Moretó, will study genomic analysis algorithms to design new accelerators that will be integrated into the HPC platforms of the future that will serve to improve the efficiency of these highly sophisticated analyses. The algorithms created and optimised by the BSC-CNS team will target GOAST (Genomics Optimisation and Scalability Tool) developed by Lenovo to optimise and improve genomic analysis. In addition, these analysis tools will be extended to other disciplines such as epigenetics, metagenomics, microbiology, virology, and other areas of life and health sciences. More sustainable and energy-efficient supercomputers The growing need to provide researchers with more powerful supercomputers and data centres requires considerable increases in energy consumption, which is no longer sustainable. An estimate of the consumption of some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world can be around 25MW, which is equivalent to the consumption of a medium-sized city. The joint research between BSC-CNS and Lenovo will seek to build more energy-efficient, sustainable and lower-cost supercomputers and data centres. The group (coordinated by the researcher Julita Corbalán) will lead this challenge at the BSC-CNS. In 2016, this team developed, together with Lenovo, new system software (EAR, Energy Aware Runtime) for the optimisation and energy efficiency of HPC tools, and together with the UPC launched the spin-off EAS (Energy Aware Solutions) to continue advancing in this direction. This new research project will seek more powerful, flexible, and robust systems for energy-saving within infrastructure solutions, such as software for energy optimisation and management. They will look to incorporate new technologies developed by INTEL within the algorithms recently developed by Corbalán's team. The project will also seek to extend and monitor energy expenditure to the entire infrastructure architecture. European autonomy in chip design In 2019, the BSC announced the creation of the European Laboratory for Open Computing Architecture (LOCA), whose mission is to design and develop chip technology within Europe, based on open -RISC-V instruction set architecture. This laboratory, led by researcher John D. Davis, was born as a collaborative project with companies, foundations, and academic institutions to create open-source hardware that guarantees transparency, competitiveness, and technological autonomy. The incorporation of Lenovo in this project will help facilitate progress towards this priority objective for Europe. In the same context of LOCA, the BSC also recently announced the creation of a joint laboratory with INTEL to develop chips with European technology. The collaboration between BSC-CNS and Lenovo is the continuation of joint work that dates to 2016, aimed at studying the use of artificial intelligence in the field of precision medicine or the sustainability of supercomputers, amongst others.

BSI recognises Corero Network Security as a provider of DDoS defence for critical infrastructure

Corero Network Security has received the BSI DDoS mitigation service provider qualification. The BSI has recognised the increase in the number of cyber attacks, both in number and intensity. Cyber breaches can affect any organisation, not only financially but also damaging its reputation and its customer’s trust. To give organisations a better chance of withstanding an attack, BSI recommends that organisations improve their cyber defences by partnering with a service provider with a high level of specialised knowledge. To help organisations make an informed choice, BSI has compiled a list of recognised DDoS mitigation service providers, including Corero Network Security. Qualifying for BSI recognition involved completing a rigorous selection criteria. The audit included a comprehensive technical assessment, where Corero proved its capacity to identify and handle both massive DDOS incursions as well as the smaller, sub-saturation attacks which are becoming an increasingly common threat. A technical review of DDoS protection solutions was conducted, and all supporting documentation reviewed. Corero’s CEO Lionel Chmilewsky comments on the achievement, “This acknowledgement from BSI comes as result of our continuous investment into our solutions, R&D, as well as our significant growing presence in the EMEA market. We are extremely proud to be the only on-premise DDoS protection provider to be qualified by such an important organisation. This is a major step towards expanding our success in the DACH region.” Corero’s mission is to make the internet a safer place by protecting against the downtime and disruption caused by DDoS attacks. Corero is enabling organisations around the globe to maintain business continuity in the event of DDoS attacks, with its SmartWall DDoS protection solution. As DDoS attacks continue to grow in magnitude, frequency, and sophistication, it is no longer safe to address this growing problem with traditional blackholing or manual interventions. Corero’s real-time automatic approach is the only way to effectively prevent DDoS-downtime as it blocks over 98% of attacks in seconds, with no operator intervention required. Its ongoing market growth is being further propelled by multiple new product enhancements which ensure we continue to do so.

Uptime Institute finds downtime consequences worsening as efforts to curb outage frequency fall short

The digital infrastructure sector is struggling to achieve a measurable reduction in outage rates and severity, and the financial consequences and overall disruption from outages are steadily increasing, according to Uptime Institute, which today released the findings of its 2022 annual Outage Analysis report. “Digital infrastructure operators are still struggling to meet the high standards that customers expect and service level agreements demand – despite improving technologies and the industry’s strong investment in resiliency and downtime prevention,” says Andy Lawrence, Founding Member and Executive Director, Uptime Institute Intelligence. “The lack of improvement in overall outage rates is partly the result of the immensity of recent investment in digital infrastructure, and all the associated complexity that operators face as they transition to hybrid, distributed architectures,” comments Lawrence. “In time, both the technology and operational practices will improve, but at present, outages remain a top concern for customers, investors, and regulators. Operators will be best able to meet the challenge with rigorous staff training and operational procedures to mitigate the human error behind many of these failures.” Uptime’s annual outage analysis is unique in the industry, and draws on multiple surveys, information supplied by Uptime Institute members and partners, and its database of publicly reported outages. Key Findings Include: • High outage rates haven’t changed significantly. One in five organisations report experiencing a ‘serious’ or ‘severe’ outage (involving significant financial losses, reputational damage, compliance breaches and in some severe cases, loss of life) in the past three years, marking a slight upward trend in the prevalence of major outages. According to Uptime’s 2022 Data Centre Resiliency Survey, 80% of data centre managers and operators have experienced some type of outage in the past three years – a marginal increase over the norm, which has fluctuated between 70% and 80%. • The proportion of outages costing over $100,000 has soared in recent years. Over 60% of failures result in at least $100,000 in total losses, up substantially from 39% in 2019. The share of outages that cost upwards of $1 million increased from 11% to 15% over that same period. • Power-related problems continue to dog data centre operators. Power-related outages account for 43% of outages that are classified as significant (causing downtime and financial loss). The single biggest cause of power incidents is uninterruptible power supply (UPS) failures. • Networking issues are causing a large portion of IT outages. According to Uptime’s 2022 Data Centre Resiliency Survey, networking-related problems have been the single biggest cause of all IT service downtime incidents – regardless of severity – over the past three years. Outages attributed to software, network and systems issues are on the rise due to complexities from the increasing use of cloud technologies, software-defined architectures and hybrid, distributed architectures. • The overwhelming majority of human error-related outages involve ignored or inadequate procedures. Nearly 40% of organisations have suffered a major outage caused by human error over the past three years. 85% of these incidents stem from staff failing to follow procedures or from flaws in the processes and procedures themselves. • External IT providers cause most major public outages. The more workloads that are outsourced to external providers, the more these operators account for high-profile, public outages. Third-party, commercial IT operators (including cloud, hosting, colocation, telecommunication providers, etc.) account for 63% of all publicly reported outages that Uptime has tracked since 2016. In 2021, commercial operators caused 70% of all outages. • Prolonged downtime is becoming more common in publicly reported outages. The gap between the beginning of a major public outage and full recovery has stretched significantly over the last five years. Nearly 30% of these outages in 2021 lasted more than 24 hours, a disturbing increase from just 8% in 2017. • Public outage trends suggest there will be at least 20 serious, high-profile IT outages worldwide each year. Of the 108 publicly reported outages in 2021, 27 were serious or severe. This ratio has been consistent since the Uptime Intelligence team began cataloguing major outages in 2016, indicating that roughly one-fourth of publicly recorded outages each year are likely to be serious or severe.

Hoxhunt raises $40M to solve the hardest part of cybersecurity: people

Hoxhunt has announced that it has raised $40 million in its Series B round led by Level Equity Management, along with participation by existing investor Icebreaker.vc. The new funding will aid the development of Hoxhunt’s edge technology and accelerate growth in new markets, particularly North America. Hoxhunt makes good email cybersecurity a habit. Hoxhunt’s gamified platform rewards employees for reporting simulated and real email threats, using machine learning to create millions of individualised phishing simulations. Hoxhunt lightens the load for security teams who, aided by an elite customer success team, can upskill whole organisations with unprecedented engagement rates at the push of a button. Cybercrime represents an ever-worsening pandemic costing global businesses trillions of dollars per year. Email is the main vector of transmission as 90% of all breaches, from ransomware to Business Email Compromise, are initiated by a phishing email. Hoxhunt is turning the tide on phishing attacks with breakthrough innovation. Their unprecedented results are supported by hard data and glowing testimonials from partners like Microsoft and Deloitte, and customers such as DocuSign, G2 and a number of governmental agencies. “Email is the biggest threat to enterprise security; that’s why human nature is the most important cybersecurity challenge to solve, instead of building incrementally better mousetraps at the technical perimeter,” says Hoxhunt CEO Mika Aalto. “Our first-to-market platform enables measurable behaviour change and cultural transformation. Our fundamentally different approach combines personalised and hyper-realistic training, adapted to each individual's skill, role, location, and language.” The cybersecurity market has seen explosive growth over the past two years. Cybersecurity spending is projected to grow from $262.4 billion in 2022 to $458.9 billion in 2025, with tightening regulatory and insurance pressure driving higher expenditure on awareness. Cybercrime costs are projected to swell to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. “There is tremendous growth potential in the cybersecurity awareness category, which we at Level Equity Partners are thrilled to invest in again with Hoxhunt, who we see as best-in-class in terms of innovation, product design, and leadership,” comments Sarah Sommer, Co-Founder and Partner at Level Equity Management. “In just two years, the number of cybersecurity unicorn companies has jumped from six to over 50, but too few are security awareness vendors. Next-level security training represents a huge opportunity in terms of ROI and, more importantly, doing good for the world.”

CityFibre investing £23m in High Wycombe to deliver full fibre rollout

CityFibre has named High Wycombe as the next UK town in line for a multi-million-pound investment in its digital infrastructure – a move that will see it join the nation’s growing list of full fibre enabled communities. CityFibre is investing £23m in a new town-wide network that will bring fast and reliable full fibre-enabled internet services within reach of almost every home and business in High Wycombe. Construction work on the full fibre network will start in June in West Wycombe, with Instalcom appointed as build partner. As work is completed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate the homes ‘ready for service’, which means residents can choose to connect to full fibre-enabled broadband services when they go live in their area. Nationally, CityFibre is building new and better digital infrastructure for up to eight million homes and businesses through its up to £4bn Gigabit City Investment Programme. Full fibre networks, unlike many of the copper-based ‘fibre broadband’ services available today, use 100% fibre optic technology to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection. This gives users speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps for upload and download (up to 1,000 Mbps), near limitless bandwidth and connectivity users can depend on. A full fibre connection also goes far beyond simply enabling access to the latest entertainment at lightning speed. As an essential digital utility, full fibre boosts households and businesses alike, with experts saying it will drive a range of economic benefits, such as making us more productive and innovative. As Area Manager, Neil Madle will lead the delivery of the High Wycombe project. He will be responsible for ensuring works are delivered efficiently and considerately, while also acting as the main point of contact for all stakeholders. Neil says: “The next chapter in High Wycombe’s story starts here. Our builders will soon get to work on a town-wide full fibre network – and we think people will be blown away by the difference it will make, both now and for generations to come. We cannot stress the importance of digital connectivity and the major benefits it will reap now and long into the future and can’t wait for residents and businesses to enjoy the results.” Speaking of CityFibre’s full fibre rollout plans for High Wycombe Peter Strachan, Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration at Buckinghamshire Council comments: “We welcome the strategic investment CityFibre are making in High Wycombe. A full fibre infrastructure will help businesses and residents right across the town to unlock the power of full fibre connections which offer unrivalled speeds. Full fibre connections carry data at light speed all the way directly from the home right through to the point of connection. These kind of speeds boost households and businesses alike, whether it’s a case of enabling access to the latest entertainment at lightning speed or helping to unleash productivity and innovation in local businesses. By offering such superfast speeds the City Fibre network could help transform the digital lives of around 125,000 people in High Wycombe.”

Stream Data Centres announces formation of separately managed account

Stream Data Centres is proud to announce the formation of a new investment vehicle backed by a leading public pension plan to make wholly-owned investments in data centre opportunities across the United States. This new account continues Stream’s long-term history in data centre investing and momentum in building comprehensive solutions in service of its customers, tenants, investors and partners. The new vehicle will focus on stabilised and modest value-add opportunities in major U.S. markets where the team believes it can unlock value and manage risk through its vertically integrated data centre operating platform and experienced investment team. Mike Armstrong, Managing Director of the Stream investments practice, notes, “A key differentiator that helped us win, beyond our longstanding track record of successfully investing in and developing data centres, was our people and putting relationships first.” Michael Wong, also a Managing Director with Stream Data Centres, adds, “We are very excited to partner with such a well-established and experienced real estate investor that shares our view of the long-term attractiveness of data centres as an institutional asset class.”

Rosendin selected to build Meta’s Temple data centre in Texas

Rosendin has been selected to build Meta Platform’s new Temple Data Centre in Texas. The employee-owned company will work with general contractor JE Dunn to build the $800 million data centre building and site infrastructure in an industrial park located 50 miles north of the Austin Metro area. “We are proud to provide our expertise in designing and building this critical mission project in Texas that supports the public’s love for social media as a way to connect with friends and family, utilise the marketplace, and be entertained,” says Rosendin Project Executive, Paul Gottfried. “Rosendin’s vast experience building secure and energy efficient data centres with reliable power and communications systems makes us uniquely qualified for this important project.” Starting July 2022, Rosendin will hire 440 craft workers and staff in Temple. This includes skilled electrical workers with the IBEW Local 72, as well as prefabrication warehouse staff, BIM (computer modelers), estimators, project managers, and office staff. Career opportunities are available for experienced craft workers, as well as apprentices and those interested in exploring jobs in the construction industry. “Meta Platform’s new data centre is a true investment to the Temple community that is building a stronger digital infrastructure, creating high-paying jobs, and using clean energy solutions that will supported by 100% renewable energy,” comments Rosendin Division Manager, Shaun Mahan. The 900,000 square foot data centre aims to serve as a model of energy efficiency and will be supported by renewable energy from new solar energy plants. The project will also aim for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification and receive credits for water restoration efforts. To date, Meta has invested more than 700 megawatts of new wind and solar energy in Texas. “Rosendin has been in business for over 100 years, and we value our long relationship with JE Dunn. We aim to be a strong partner to all the stakeholders by providing a stable, robust workforce of skilled craft workers with IBEW Local 72 who appreciate the value that innovative data centres have on communities,” adds Rosendin General Superintendent, Justin Prince. Construction on Meta Platform’s Temple Data Centre will begin in spring 2022 and create a total of 1,200 jobs during construction at the 400-acre site, located in an industrial park at NW H.K. Dodgen Loop and Industrial Park Boulevard. A statement from the Temple Economic Development Corporation says the area is a regional employment hub with 450,000 residents and a thriving business environment to diversified industries.

Kettering to benefit from full fibre boost as CityFibre announces investment

CityFibre has named Kettering as the next UK town in line for a multi-million-pound investment in its digital infrastructure – a move that will see it join the nation’s growing list of full fibre enabled communities. CityFibre is set to invest £17m in a new town-wide network that will bring fast and reliable full fibre-enabled internet services within reach of nearly every home and business in Kettering. Construction work will begin in early May around the Northfield Avenue and Rockingham Road area in the north of the town. As work is completed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate the homes ‘ready for service’, which means residents can choose to connect to faster and more reliable full fibre-enabled broadband services when they go live in their area. Full fibre networks, unlike many of the copper-based ‘fibre broadband’ services available today, use 100% fibre optic technology to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection. This gives users speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps for upload and download, near limitless bandwidth and connectivity users can depend on. As Area Manager, James Cushing will lead the delivery of the Kettering project. He will be responsible for ensuring works are delivered efficiently and considerately, while also acting as the main point of contact for all stakeholders. James says: “CityFibre’s investment will bring a change to connectivity for Kettering. It will bring choice for residents and businesses and align perfectly with the ambitious regeneration and growth plans for the town. Our builders will soon get to work on a town-wide full fibre network – and we think people will be blown away by the difference it will make, both now and for generations to come. We cannot wait for residents and businesses to see what is possible with digital connectivity and the important part it will play in each of our lives.” A full fibre connection also goes far beyond simply enabling access to the latest entertainment at lightning speed. As an essential digital utility, full fibre boosts households and businesses alike, with experts saying it will drive a range of economic benefits, such as helping residents access essential services and work from home, while enabling businesses to be more productive, innovative and access new markets. Speaking of CityFibre’s full fibre rollout plans for Kettering, Councillor David Howes, North Northamptonshire Council’s Executive Member for Rural Communities and Localism, says: “Getting the right digital infrastructure in place is a big priority for the council – it’s so important in so many ways. Increasing full fibre connectivity helps support economic growth and innovation as well as keeping communities connected. “We welcome CityFibre’s multimillion pound investment in Kettering and its wider plans for North Northamptonshire. I’m delighted that full fibre connectivity is now available to almost 30% of properties in North Northants, up from less than 10% two years ago. These current plans will help to boost this coverage and progress toward our targets of 40% full fibre by the end of 2023 and then 80% by 2028.”

DataQube Global has the rights to market products of LiquidCool Solutions

DataQube Global has announced that it has obtained exclusive rights to market products of LiquidCool Solutions (LCS) in various markets around the globe. In addition, DataQube has agreed to make an investment in LCS.   The agreement covers LCS' ZPServer and also the newly launched miniNODE, a next generation harsh environment sealed cooling solution technology solution, developed using eco-friendly dielectric fluids, and intended for mission critical infrastructures where reliability, low maintenance and equipment longevity are key. DataQube Global is planning to deploy LCS’s miniNODE across its portfolio of edge data centre solutions by the end of 2022, to assist clients in deploying edge technology. Incorporating LCS’ immersive cooling technology into the design architecture of DataQube Global’s edge data centre products deliver a range of operational and performance advantages, including low maintenance, reduced downtime and extended component shelf life, the LCS’ novel miniNODE cooling solution, along with the ability to deliver 1400 times more cooling power than air. The LCS technology fully supports DataQube in its mission to deploy edge data centre systems that are eco-friendly. Unlike other solutions, DataQube Global’s unique person-free layout reduces power consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 50% as the energy transfer is primarily dedicated to powering computers. Exploiting next generation cooling technologies such as those developed by LCS offers the potential to reduce these figures further. “We have already secured a major deal in the US to augment our presence in north America.” says David Keegan, Group CEO of DataQube Global. “Investing into LiquidCool Solutions cements our position as a serious player in the data centre industry and a force to be reconciled with.” “We are extremely happy to formalise our relationship with DataQube Global. Their rapidly expanding presence in edge computing and harsh environment markets provides LCS new opportunities and complements the growth plans of DataQube. The relationship with DataQube is a key element for introducing our patented chassis-based single-phase immersion technology to the burgeoning edge and data centre markets.” concludes Ken Krei, CEO of LiquidCool Solutions.