Colocation

Telehouse begins construction of new administration building in London

Telehouse International Corporation of Europe has been given the green light to construct a pioneering new administration building at its London Docklands data centre campus. The development will significantly enhance service excellence for Telehouse’s docklands-based clients, providing an end-to-end space for reliable, secure, and flexible colocation at Europe’s most connected data centre ecosystem. International construction firm, Flynn, has been selected as the contractor responsible for executing this project. The new building will include a centralised control area, comprising new adjacent building and security control rooms, as well as a service desk location to support customers. This three-way information flow will maximise response times and enhance communication clarity during critical events. High-quality office spaces will also form part of the building. These will provide Telehouse operations employees with collaborative workspaces, dedicated meeting rooms and leading-edge welfare facilities, including a cafeteria for customer and staff use. The office will bring a unified, one-team approach, ensuring that key delivery support divisions are brought together in a visible and streamlined space. Designed to meet BREEAM Excellent criteria, the building will showcase the highest standards for sustainable design and environmental performance, which aligns with Telehouse’s continued commitment to corporate social responsibility. Coupled with world-class technologies that improve efficiencies and encourage positive behaviours, this latest development serves to create a positive social impact and support economic growth.

Vertiv expands operations in Norway

Vertiv has announced the establishment of a new legal entity in Norway, further strengthening its partnership with colocation provider, Green Mountain, and supporting its rapid growth in Northern Europe. This strategic move is testament to its commitment to delivering sustainable and scalable infrastructure to meet the increasing demands of customers and end users. As part of its expansion plans, Green Mountain has embarked on the ambitious OSL2-Hamar project, which involves the construction of a cutting-edge data centre in Hamar, Norway. This site will be powered by 90MW of renewable hydropower energy, with the potential to scale up to 150MW to accommodate future growth, and will be enabled to provide balancing services to support the grid. The facility is scheduled to deploy its first 30MW building in November 2023. Green Mountain boasts impressive credentials, including a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.25, 100% hydropower energy sources, Tier III certifications and a flawless record of 100% uptime and SLA compliance. Additionally, the data centre facility incorporates innovative, environmentally friendly features, such as pilot projects on waste heat utilisation for fish farming, circular economy initiatives, smart lighting, and innovative cooling solutions. As part of the latest expansion, Green Mountain has deployed Vertiv Liebert EXL S1 UPS with dynamic grid support and advanced battery storage systems, supporting the adoption of on-site hydropower energy and enabling grid balancing services. Each site is carefully designed and tailored to meet specific customer needs while constantly raising the bar for energy efficiency and sustainability initiatives. Vertiv has been a trusted partner of Green Mountain since 2020, providing highly efficient thermal management and power solutions, even amidst the challenges posed by the global pandemic. Click here for more latest news.

atNorth announces shortlist selection for the Energy Awards

atNorth has announced that its Sweden data centre is on the shortlist for the ‘Physical Technology of the Year – Heating and Cooling’ category at the 2023 Energy Awards. atNorth’s SWE01 data centre launched in 2022 and is specifically designed for high-density workloads, such as advanced calculations for AI, simulations, and risk analysis. It is one of the world’s first +10MW data centres with a primary cooling system designed for heat recovery. This enables 85% of the electricity used in the DC to be captured and passed on as heat to the district heating system. This residual heat can heat up to 20,000 homes.  The entry showcased the company's strategic alliance with CoolIT. Its bespoke cooling system further enhanced the existing infrastructure cooling process for its high-density servers, significantly improving overall data centre efficiency.atNorth now operates six Nordic data centres, following the launch of its third site in Iceland, ICE03, and with a seventh site due to open in Finland in 2024. The business is committed to building best in class data centres to meet the continued demand for energy efficient, data-intensive computing.  “We are delighted that our innovative data centre design has been shortlisted by the Energy Award judges,” says Steve Donovan, Chief Development Officer, atNorth. “As the environmental and economic advantages of our services continue to gain traction in the industry, we are thrilled to be recognised for the quality of our offering.”The Energy Awards aim to celebrate the energy industry’s innovations and achievements in best practice, business excellence and industry collaboration.

CapitaLand completes acquisition of data centre in the UK

CapitaLand Ascendas REIT Management has announced the completion of the acquisition of a high-specification Tier III colocation data centre from an unrelated global data centre operator. The property is situated in Watford in North West London, UK. The purchase consideration for the acquisition after taking into account the agreed value of the property of £119.4 million is £125.1 million. Mr William Tay, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, says, “As the demand for cloud and digital services continues to rise, we are capitalising on favourable market dynamics to significantly scale up our presence in the data centre sector. London ranks among the top three global data centre markets and is also Europe’s largest colocation data centre market. This Acquisition complements our data centres around London, deepening and boosting our data centre investments in the UK by 54% to S$569.8 million, as well as increasing our exposure in London to 96% of our investments in the UK. Given its strategic location and Tier III specifications, along with its robust tenancy, the property will serve as a strong catalyst in delivering additional value to the REIT.    “We expect our enlarged data centre portfolio valued at S$1.5 billion to contribute a continuous income stream towards our overall DPU growth.” Rationale and merits of the acquisition Strategic FLAPD3 location in London, UK to capture growing demand for cloud and digital services Significantly expands CLAR’s data centre footprint in Europe Resilient income stream with investment grade tenants Distribution per Unit accretive acquisition

Pulsant delivers cost savings for LinkPool crypto ecosystem

LinkPool has reduced memory, CPU and disk costs by 85%, while delivering higher network performance, following its move to platformEDGE, which is Pulsant’s multiregional UK edge infrastructure. Having previously operated on hyperscale cloud infrastructure, the combination of cost inflation and performance limitations led LinkPool to seek a solution that offered lower latency and expense without sacrificing scalability. platformEDGE was chosen to compose the infrastructure it needs to support its business-critical global workload. In moving to a regional data centre network offering edge colocation, hyperscale cloud access, and distributed compute – all available in a high-performance package – LinkPool has been able to make huge cost savings while improving performance. It has done so in an infrastructure capable of scaling to match the company’s success and growth over time. Pulsant's regional network also meant that Sheffield's data centre was ideally placed to personally oversee the build, onboarding its infrastructure in a matter of days rather than weeks. Continued investment has also seen a recent upgrade to 380kW from 176kW processing power (+114%), ensuring all businesses in the region can benefit scalable, high-performance, low latency edge application delivery. As part of the edge platform, Pulsant's Milton Keynes data centre delivers resiliency via dedicated links over its high-performance, secure, national network. “As the first third-party team creating products and services specifically for the Chainlink network, we’re in a unique position to further its use cases and adoption, and Pulsant is enabling us to do that at scale,” says Jonathan Huxtable, Founder, LinkPool. “LinkPool is committed to lowering the barrier of entry to meaningfully contribute to the Chainlink Network. Pulsant is doing the same for edge computing, making sure regional businesses like us can drastically reduce costs and improve performance,” Jonathan adds. Click here for latest data centre news.

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.

Colt launches multicast data in the cloud for capital markets

Colt Technology Services has announced the global availability of Colt Market Data in the Cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The service solves a complex challenge for exchanges, prime brokers, trading firms, market data vendors and technology providers - by hosting and distributing multicast data in the cloud without the need for conversion software. Now capital markets can experience the benefits of cloud, without being held back by cloud service providers’ inability to support critical applications. The launch follows a successful Proof of Concept announced by Colt and AWS in October 2022, which saw the companies build virtual distribution Points of Presence (PoPs) in the AWS Cloud. Colt provides market data feeds for equities, derivatives, commodities and FX from more than 80 exchanges and liquidity venues worldwide. Securely sending this market data to multiple parties simultaneously is a key requirement for financial exchanges, but getting this data to clients’ cloud environments is complex. Existing solutions typically require conversion software to change data from multicast to unicast, adding cost and complexity as organisations rewrite and retest applications. As more and more capital market firms migrate to the cloud, the problem becomes widespread. Colt Market Data in the Cloud solves this, enabling organisations to securely host and distribute raw multicast data directly to their customers’ cloud environments in its original format, ensuring seamless integration with applications, facilitating faster times to market and improving the client experience. At the same time, organisations benefit from end-to-end market data monitoring: the company monitors data at the source, within the exchange colocation; in transit, as it moves through the network; and within the virtual Point of Presence.   The launch supports the financial market’s transition to on-demand services and automation of real-time raw data and trading applications.

Cologix expands partnership with Montreal Internet Exchange

Cologix has announced an expansion with the Montreal Internet Exchange (QIX) to establish an additional Point of Presence (PoP) in the Cologix MTL7 digital edge data centre. This expanded partnership enables valuable interconnection access for businesses in the Montreal region. QIX has maintained a presence in Cologix facilities for over a decade, serving as a hub for internet, peering at its MTL1 and MTL3 digital edge data centres. Internet exchanges like QIX play a pivotal role in the value of the company’s ecosystem by enabling scalable peering and broad access to a diverse collection of networks. “This growing partnership between QIX and Cologix is driven by a shared mission to streamline the sharing of internet traffic to empower digital ecosystems at the edge,” says Peg Hallberg, Cologix’s Head of Product. “Our MTL7 facility now provides customers an environment to natively connect and exchange traffic with peering members. Businesses can directly connect to the QIX exchange in MTL7, enabling customers to expand their reach and improve network performance while fostering a dynamic digital ecosystem.” MTL7 is 26,000ft², located in downtown Montreal and connected to the MTL3 carrier hotel facility and 10 additional data centres across the city via Metro Connect. All of the data centres are ISO 27001 certified by Schellman and HIPAA, SOC1, SOC2 and PCI compliant. “Our new PoP at MTL7 makes peering easier than ever before by enabling networks within the data centre to seamlessly connect to QIX,” says Stephano Bertini, Vice President, Business Development and General Manager at QIX. “By eliminating an extra layer of connectivity, QIX ensures enhanced accessibility and facilitates more efficient and cost-effective peering options for businesses colocated at MTL7.”

KDDI Corporation, together with Telehouse, has announced the latest expansion of its global footprint in North America by reaching an agreement with Allied Properties REIT to acquire three data centres and its accompanying assets in Toronto, Canada. This investment of CAD1.35bn comes as a result of increased demand in the market for reliable interconnectivity services. Starting with the first Telehouse data centre in New York in 1989, KDDI has been continuously expanding its presence in new markets for over 30 years, with this recent acquisition bringing the total portfolio of data centres to 12 countries. The new carrier-neutral data centres are located in the city centre of Toronto, and when fully operational will provide over 30MW of IT load. Its new data centres will provide both shared and dedicated space to fulfil customer needs, especially those expanding internationally that require a highly trusted partner to establish their IT environment. Businesses wishing to collocate from the new locations will gain access to a variety of connectivity partners, including carriers, ISPs, ASPs, and large private and public cloud service providers, to extend network reach, reduce latency and costs, and improve performance. Michael Emory, Founder and Executive Chair, Allied Properties REIT, says, “With global data centre operating capability, KDDI is an ideal successor owner for our data centre assets. Canadian cities continue to grow dramatically and successfully. The growth is driven in large part by knowledge-based organisations that require sophisticated and wide-ranging connectivity solutions. KDDI is extremely well-positioned to provide these solutions and, in doing so, contribute meaningfully to the many and varied businesses operating in our cities.”

DE-CIX announces its newest expansion in Denmark

DE-CIX has pushed its expansion forward with its newest internet exchanges in Esbjerg and Copenhagen, Denmark. The IXs are now ready for service in the data centres of Bulk Data Centers and Digital Realty, with more enabled sites to be announced in due course. These internet exchanges are based on the DE-CIX Apollon interconnection and cloud platform, which includes cloud routing services for companies to manage their hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios and gain control of their data beyond the public internet. With the approach of one access, all clouds, and every network, it is bringing its InterconnectionFLEX service to Denmark, providing enterprises with an interconnection package as a solution for peering, cloud connectivity, and private network interconnects. Customers can have direct access to over 50 clouds, 2,000+ local and international networks, and over 250 data centres in Germany, Southern Europe, Asia, and the US. In addition, it will act as a digital hub for regional connectivity, enabling local networks low-latency interconnection and the localisation of global content, while increasing network stability, scalability, and security. The platform also offers advanced service features and automation, including access to the DE-CIX self-service portal and the DE-CIX API. “DE-CIX is proud to provide interconnection services in Denmark, bringing our state-of-the-art platform to a highly digitalised society. By interconnecting our Danish platform with not only our Nordic ecosystem, but also with our interconnection platforms in the Central and Southern European, and North American markets, it offers Denmark access to the largest data centre and carrier neutral interconnection ecosystem. DE-CIX is here to serve interconnection requirements of Danish enterprises, today and in the future,” says Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX. “We’re delighted to have the opportunity to work with DE-CIX and provide its members with access to a wide range of colocation and connectivity solutions, including direct connections to the world’s major cloud providers. Through our data centre platform, PlatformDIGITAL, businesses will benefit from low-latency, secure access to companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, helping to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and ultimately, support them as they continue their digital transformation journeys,” says Pernille Hoffman, Managing Director, Digital Realty in the Nordics. “Our partnership with DE-CIX will give local and international customers the option to interconnect and access a range of services in major markets with even lower latency. By strategically locating our data centre in Esbjerg, we leverage the advantages of a close proximity to continental Europe and robust fibre connectivity to the US. We are seeing an increase in demand for low-cost, highly sustainable solutions and with these new DE-CIX Nordics locations we are helping to support that gravity shift north, where you find the greenest energy in Europe,” says Gisle M. Eckhoff, Executive Vice President, Data Centres at Bulk Infrastructure Group.