Infrastructure

ClickUp announces EU data centre in Ireland

ClickUp has announced that it is expanding its investment in Europe with localised data hosting in its European data centre. Its customers, who are subscribed to the company's enterprise plan, will now have the option to host their data in ClickUp's European region at no additional cost. Operated by Amazon Web Services, ClickUp's European data centre is based in Ireland. With complete ownership of their data, customers will have peace of mind that all their data will meet European data hosting requirements. In addition, they will experience increased performance and the ability to scale operations without compromising speed or efficiency. It will begin migrating eligible workspaces on 31 July 2023. "This is a landmark moment for ClickUp as we scale to support our largest customers and their increasingly complex security and privacy compliance requirements," says Richard McGuinness, VP of EMEA Sales at ClickUp. "With localised data hosting, we are proud to deliver even more capabilities to support the largest businesses in the world and their unique needs across geographies." ClickUp customers interested in migrating to the new European data centre can contact the sales team through the form available on ClickUp’s website. Click here for more news on data centres.

Datum Datacentres completes new data hall in Farnborough

As part of a £7 million investment, a major expansion project has been completed at Datum Datacentres’ flagship Farnborough data centre (FRN1). The design and build activities were carried out by Keysource, a global critical environment specialist and Datum’s infrastructure partner. Since designing and building Datum’s Farnborough data centre facility, Keysource has been integral to all upgrade and development projects throughout its growth. The new data hall, Hall 4, provides 380 rack positions, a cooling infrastructure for 1000kW of IT load with N+1 resilience, and a power infrastructure for 1000kW of IT load with 2N resilience. This extra capacity comes at a time when many companies are struggling to find data centre capacity due to the increase in demand for digital services, cloud computing and data storage. Hall 4 has been designed to deliver efficiency and support net zero targets, including: The use of sustainable Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) in the backup generators. An optimised cooling solution. Lithium-ion batteries in the UPS system for longer battery life and the removal of the need for additional cooling. Datum became the Datum Group in 2022 with its acquisition of leading Manchester-based colocation provider, Teledata, as part of its regional expansion strategy. The completion of Hall 4 at FRN1 is a precursor to an even larger design and build project that will be commencing soon at its Farnborough and Manchester sites. FRN2 in Farnborough will provide 600 footprints on the ground floor with scope to double this capacity on the first floor. MCR2 at the Teledata site in Manchester will offer up to 1,000 new server racks. Dominic Phillips, CEO of Datum, says, "We are pleased to be able to offer extra data centre capacity at a time when companies are struggling to find the high quality data centre footprint they need. We have proved since 2013 that our energy efficient, ‘service first’ colocation formula is a successful one, so we are delighted to be able to offer more of our services from our growing facilities." Click here for more news on data centres.

atNorth announces highest revenue to date

atNorth has announced a group income of SEK 560 million (EUR 53 million) as it publishes its 2022 annual accounts. This figure represents a 44% increase in revenue from 2021 and further growth is expected in the coming years.  The company currently operates six data centres based in Iceland, Sweden and Finland. It is planning further state-of-the-art sites in the coming years. atNorth‘s growth calls for extensive investment and it has secured access to capital for this purpose. The investment for the year 2022 amounted to about SEK 220 million (EUR 20 million), and it is already evident that the 2023 level of investment will be significantly higher. Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth, says, "In recent years, we have built an enormous wealth of knowledge. Our customers value our services and it is core to atNorth's good reputation." He also commends the support of the company‘s sponsor, Partners Group, that acquired the majority of the company's shares at the beginning of 2022. As digital transformation and the use of AI and other big data projects escalates, businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on supercomputers to perform ever more complex calculations. The resulting need for high performance data centre and supercomputing services has led to an exponential increase in demand in recent years. atNorth continues to promote the Nordic region as a superlative location for investment in digital infrastructure, recently winning the ‘Tech Capital Location’ award for Iceland as a result of its advantageous climate, favourable business environment and cutting-edge infrastructure. Eyjólfur comments, “Iceland is truly on the map, and with our best-in-class data centres, outstanding customer service and proficient marketing communications, atNorth is proud to have created a desirable position in the market.”

Forestry & Land Scotland embrace cloud technology

Nutanix has announced that Forestry & Land Scotland (FLS) has upgraded its data centre infrastructure to a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), selecting the Nutanix Cloud Platform to support a workload of 300 virtual machines. FLS opted for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on Microsoft Azure. With Nutanix NC2, it has been able to migrate the whole data centre to Azure without the time, effort and expense of re-engineering applications for native deployment. Founded in 2018 as part of the Scottish devolution process, FLS manages over 1.5 million acres of national forests and land. To meet the short term IT needs of a newly devolved Scottish government agency, at the same time, supporting its move to the public cloud in line with a cloud-first government policy, it was required to rapidly revamp its legacy on-premises data centre. FLS was already using Microsoft Azure to provide for disaster recovery of its on-premise data centre, so naturally, the organisation first looked at re-engineering for native operation of its applications on that platform. It soon realised that NC2 for Azure would be a better, quicker and more cost-effective approach, enabling it to stretch its existing environment seamlessly into the cloud and migrate workflows at its own pace, without having to transform or re-engineer the code in any way. The migration also offered immediate benefits in terms of both performance and on-demand scalability. It resulted in a significantly smaller data centre footprint, in terms of both physical space and power and cooling requirements. As with the original data centre project, Mahlitz, Nutanix was able to help by arranging a proof of concept trial of Nutanix NC2 on Microsoft Azure involving actual FLS production workloads.

CtrlS and EECO plan Thailand's hyperscale data centre

CtrlS has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with EECO (Eastern Economic Corridor Office) to lease a 10ac land parcel for 50 years, located in Chonburi province. The land will be used to build a 150MW data centre in the Greenfield campus and mark its first international market expansion and hyperscale data centre in Thailand.   At a time when digitalisation across Thailand, deployment of 5G, and improved connectivity with highly efficient submarine cables, with countries such as USA, China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, is making the country an attractive hub for digital infrastructure, the data centre development in the EECO will attract both international and domestic hyperscale and enterprise customers. Speaking on the MoA, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Chairman, CtrlS Datacenters, says, “Through this collaboration, we aim to serve customers’ needs for digital services, both domestic and international. The data centre is designed to meet hyperscalers’ needs in addition to serving high end IT/compute needs of domestic enterprises.” He adds, “We see this data centre as a unique opportunity to contribute towards development of Thailand’s eastern region and offer a robust diverse option for international customers and partners for establishing their footprint in the country and region. Thailand is strategically well positioned at the centre of Southeast Asia and we strive to bring investments and international customers to the country through our data centre.”        The site also offers proximity to submarine cable landing stations for AAG (Asia America Gateway) and ADC (Asia Direct Cable) systems, making this data centre a point of connection equipped with submarine and terrestrial cable networks to connect to other data centres and industrial estates. It is also close to the EECO startup incubator and is elevated relative to flood prone areas, with mean sea level > 40m. The EECO is geographically diverse from Bangkok and is at the intersection of multiple fibre paths north and south.

Start Campus and EXA to expand network route

Start Campus has announced that EXA Infrastructure (EXA) has committed to invest in two new diverse and redundant terrestrial routes in Sines, Portugal.  EXA’s strategic network expansion in Sines links Start Campus’s Sines Project, a 495MW hyperscale data centre development, to its backbone in Madrid, Spain. The new connectivity hub will be the gateway to European, African and American digital platforms.  The key location of the project further strengthens Portugal as a connectivity hub for Europe, providing access via transatlantic cable landings and EXA’s expansive terrestrial network route. Steve Roberts, VP of Network Investments, EXA Infrastructure, says, “EXA continues to invest and expand our network to ensure we are enabling the growth and success of our customers. We are witnessing an increasing demand for enhanced connectivity routes in and out of Southern Europe and we are pleased to partner with Start Campus to power this demand by connecting Sines to our pan-European backbone.” Set to be ready for service in late 2023, the project will be a large hyperscaler data centre ecosystem. It benefits from ocean water cooling systems, high voltage power grids, and high capacity international fibre optic cables. Being fully powered by renewable and affordable energy, the company also offers a 100% sustainable campus powered by 24x7 renewable energy facilities, resulting in a low Total Cost of Operations (TCO) for its customers. Last year, it signed an agreement with EllaLink. The partnership provides a framework of cooperation between the two, guaranteeing that the infrastructures interact, knowledge is shared, and synergies are established to promote Sines as a new digital hub in global data network systems.  Today, Sines is directly connected to Lisbon, Madrid, Fortaleza, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. In the future, the connectivity will be extended to Marseille, Barcelona, Casablanca and more.

The Paratus Group announces new data centres in Angola

The Paratus Group is celebrating 20 years in Africa by announcing it will construct Angola’s first Tier-IV by design data centre in Luanda. This complements the existing two Tier-III by design data centres that the pan-African telco already owns and operates in Angola. It is the fifth certified and carrier neutral data centre operated by the company in Southern Africa. Chief Technical Officer at Paratus, Rolf Mendelsohn, who is participating at the Pan-African data centre exhibition and conference as a panellist, says, “The new data centre will be constructed on a 30,000m2 plot, will have the capacity to house over 2,000 cabinets, and will have a total IT power capacity of more than 10MW. It is a natural evolution after having built other world-class data centre facilities in Namibia and Zambia recently. It will be the biggest data centre in Angola and not only complements our existing data centre offering, but will cement our network in Angola as a major hub in the region.” The company currently has four Tier-III by design data centres in Southern Africa. With the opportunities presented by the activation of the Equiano subsea cable and by the growing digital economy, it has established itself as a player in igniting the possibilities for hyperscalers, cloud and infrastructure providers and multinational enterprises. Rolf adds, "Colocation of critical infrastructure in data centres is becoming indispensable to businesses wanting a digital economy advantage. We will support this by providing the necessary infrastructure and services to give businesses what they need to actively compete in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR).” The company owns and operates data centres in Angola, Namibia and Zambia. All Paratus data centres have been ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certified.

BDC expands data centre in Kuala Lumpur

Bridge Data Centres (BDC) has announced that it will expand its hyperscale data centre campus, MY03, located at MRANTI Park, Kuala Lumpur. This expansion provides an additional 48MW of IT power to hyperscalers and enterprises in Malaysia and Asia Pacific.   BDC has signed an agreement with Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology & Innovation (MRANTI) to develop three buildings and a 132kV substation. With the expansion, MY03 will offer a total IT power capacity of 64MW. The expansion project comprises two phases. Phase one is planned to be ready for service with 16MW by Q3, 2025. Phase two is scheduled to begin operations by Q4, 2027. BDC and MRANTI held a signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur which was witnessed by Dzuleira Abu Bakar, Chief Executive Officer of MRANTI; Khairil Anuar Sadat Salleh, Chief Commercial Officer of MRANTI; and Dz Shing Lim, President, Bridge Data Centres. The establishment of the data centre campus entrenches Malaysia as a desired destination for data centre investment in the Asia Pacific region. Located strategically in the vicinity of central Kuala Lumpur, the park spans across a vast area of 686ac and supports the entire innovation process with a focus on driving the commercialisation of ‘impact technologies’ in key industry sectors to foster sustainable development. “Last year, we introduced a comprehensive and integrated approach to transform MRANTI Park from a property-focused sector into a leading 4IR hub in Malaysia. This master plan aims to achieve a gross development value of RM20bn, land leases worth RM2.8bn, and the creation of 8,000 jobs by 2027,” says Dzuleira Abu Bakar, CEO of MRANTI. “We recently launched the country’s national testbed for 5G through the government-led MRANTI 5G Experience Centre to fast-track new innovations in a more enriching data-driven future. Today, we are excited to announce the expansion of Bridge Data Centres within MRANTI Park, aligning perfectly with MRANTI Park’s expansion strategy,” says Dzuleira.

Pulsant identifies digital disparity across the UK

According to a new research from Pulsant, seven in ten (70%) UK IT decision makers believe there is digital disparity in the UK. The data indicates that 78% of IT decision makers think more investment in local technology infrastructure is needed to meaningfully support regional growth – rising to 89% for those outside of London. Edge computing was highlighted by 89% of IT decision makers as important, suggesting that reduced latency and high-speed connectivity are key priorities. Edge computing would bring compute and data storage capabilities closer to regional use cases, delivering local businesses with high-performance connectivity and storage to areas that have not necessarily benefited from them before. Commenting on the findings, Simon Michie, CTO at Pulsant, says, “With data, connected devices, remote users and latency-sensitive applications all growing exponentially, there’s pressure right across the UK to enable digital access for everyone. The government’s levelling up agenda simply must bear fruit if UK businesses are to meet rising user expectations, and that requires meaningful investment in infrastructure across the board. “With platformEDGE, we bring edge computing to every region of the UK through our unique multi-regional network infrastructure. Whether your business is in Manchester, Newcastle, or Edinburgh, we want every business to be able to take advantage of edge computing to develop new products, reach new markets and reimagine operations.”

VAST Data in conjunction with Commvault, has announced that the two companies are enabling Expedient to deliver Service Level Agreement (SLA) to its customers, without the conventional expense associated with legacy infrastructure. Expedient is a full stack cloud service provider to transform its IT operations through multi-cloud solutions and manage infrastructure services. The service provider selected VAST to help drive greater operational efficiency and performance for customers with data protection services from Commvault, and has seen an additional data reduction since moving to VAST’s data platform, on top of Commvault’s front-end deduplication. “With VAST and Commvault, Expedient is partnering with the best software companies in the industry to deliver the most innovative IT solutions in the market,” says Bryan Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Expedient. “Our customers depend on us to manage their IT infrastructure to allow them to focus on their core business, and through these partnerships, we are improving the performance, reliability, and scalability for our customers, resulting in a higher service level and improved recovery time. That translates to better business outcomes for the short and long term.” VAST has enabled Expedient to retire its legacy Direct Attached Storage (DAS) target, in order to achieve: Rapid ransomware recovery Infrastructure consolidation at scale Improved data reduction through Commvault + VAST integration 80% less power, space, cooling Archive economics with NVMe performance Bryan continues, “We were very impressed with VAST’s consistently high data transfer and secondary data reduction. For instance, normally, sealing a deduplication database would cause storage consumption to increase as it requires all new data signatures and blocks. However, as VAST was able to identify the incoming blocks, it was able to deduplicate that data regardless.” “Together with VAST, we are enabling solution and service providers like Expedient to help their customers recover their historical backups at a much faster rate to ensure their business and operations continue to run undisrupted,” says Alan Atkinson, Chief Partner Officer at Commvault. “As we finalise our new validated design based on this successful use case, we are excited to see how our partners and customers will take advantage of this deep integration.”