Hyperscale Data Centres: Scale, Speed & Strategy

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres to build data centre in the Philippines

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres has announced that it is expanding its footprint in Asia with the development of what it says will be the largest and most interconnected carrier-neutral data centre in the Philippines.       This announcement comes as the company celebrates its first anniversary milestone since the formation of the JV. The data centre campus also marks STT GDC’s single largest data centre project development to date across its global portfolio. “With the Philippine digital industry set to grow at a projected compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% through to 2030, we are seeing rapidly growing demand for high-quality colocation services in the Philippines as both cloud service providers and enterprises alike continually expand their business platforms to meet consumers' evolving demand for low-latency digital services,” says Carlo Malana, Chief Executive Officer, STT GDC Philippines. “We are confident that we will be able to capture new demand while helping our customers meet their own sustainability ambitions with this new and differentiated data centre capacity. This also presents an opportunity to nurture local talent in digital and green skills that will be much needed in the future.” Sustained growth is projected across ASEAN and the Philippines' digital economy is seen to be a forerunner, with e-commerce expected to propel the country’s gross merchandise value (GMV) to US$35 billion in 2025. The Philippine digital economy is also expected to grow twice as fast as GDP through to 2030.  “With the Philippines’ digital transformation gaining headway, STT GDC’s new facility will be an important addition in the data centre space in the country, where the market is underserved. This will provide crucial support for the growing digital industry not just in the country, but also in the region, and will set a new standard of environmentally-friendly data centres in the Philippines,” says Globe Group President and CEO Ernest Cu. The new data centre campus, STT Fairview, will comprise over 83,000m2 of gross floor area across four buildings, offering a development potential of 124MW of IT load capacity once fully built out. It is strategically positioned within Quezon City with access to nearby substations, as well as critical telecommunications, transportation links, and logistics, business and industry hubs.  This new data centre campus will cater to both hyperscalers and enterprises, providing flexible and scalable low-latency colocation options that are also sustainably built and operated.  In line with STT GDC’s group-wide focus and commitment towards carbon neutral data centre operations by 2030, STT Fairview will support the company’s sustainability goals with power usage effectiveness (PUE) and a host of sustainable features. ● Embodied carbon reductions - the use of innovative solutions such as hollow core concrete slabs, recycled steel and HDPE piping are among the many topics being explored which will lead to reductions in embodied carbon of the development.  ● Liquid cooling-readiness - the new data centre will have the ability to house liquid cooled solutions and servers based on customer requirements. Liquid immersion cooling supports high performance computing applications such as AI, and can offer data centres and their customers, particularly those operating in the tropics, a sustainability boost by substantially reducing energy consumption and water consumption.  ● AI readiness - the facility will be ready to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) technology and advanced analytics to improve the data centre’s operational efficiency, as well as optimise energy use to reduce its overall carbon footprint. ● Built to global industry standards - this new data centre will be built to specifications that will meet international standards such as a LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC), Uptime Institute Tier III, and TIA-942 Rated 3.  STT Fairview will include ready network connections to STT Makati, one of the most interconnected data centres in the Philippines, providing customers of the new data centre campus immediate access to a rich selection of local and international network service providers, internet exchanges and submarine cable systems. “The Philippine data centre colocation market is poised for growth with a five-year CAGR of 25% through 2027 and hyperscale demand is on the uptrend. This is an opportune moment to support the Philippines’ digital growth agenda with core data centre infrastructure that is the linchpin of a digital society,” says Lionel Yeo, Chief Executive Officer - Southeast Asia, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. “With its complex design and scale requirements, this new data centre will offer market-leading efficiencies without the reliability trade-offs, bringing a new standard in data centre capacity to the Philippines that will serve the country’s digital and sustainability ambitions with its future-ready features.”

Nlyte Software’s data centre optimisation lifecycle solution adds security and architecture enhancements

Nlyte Software has announced its latest software release, Nlyte R14, which includes new architecture features and security enhancements to improve the efficiency and security of data centre management. Nlyte Software is a part of Carrier Global Corporation, an intelligent climate and energy solutions provider. “Cross-platform compatibility and cloud-friendly architecture make Nlyte R14 an excellent tool for businesses looking to improve their data centre management and sustainability,” says Enzo Greco, President, Nlyte. With the new cross-platform poller that increases flexibility and introduces new architecture, Nlyte R14 can be installed on Windows servers and as a Docker container on Linux hosts, reducing the need for additional hardware. Linux users can enjoy the benefits of Nlyte Software without added license costs. The latest poller increases the security of the system by reducing the number of open inbound system ports. The cloud-friendly architecture makes Nlyte R14 an ideal solution for businesses operating in the cloud. The update offers support for Nlyte deployments in Microsoft Azure Platform as a Service, as well as German language support. Nlyte R14 also provides application performance improvements to support the largest hyperscale customer environments. With these latest features, businesses can better manage and optimise their data centre operations, resulting in increased productivity and cost savings.

Dr Kelley Mullick joins Iceotope Technologies

Iceotope Technologies has announced the appointment of Kelley A. Mullick PhD, as Vice President, Technology Advancement and Alliances. Recognised for her expertise in immersion and cold plate liquid cooling, Kelley joins the company from Intel Corporation where she worked in product management and strategy for the data centre and AI group, where she developed Intel’s first immersion cooling warranty, announced at Open Compute Project (OCP) 2022. Kelley also holds a BSc in Chemistry and Biology from Walsh University, an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Akron and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Ohio State University. David Craig, CEO, Iceotope Technologies says, “Kelley is a welcome addition to the Iceotope team. She joins us as the market is turning increasingly to liquid cooling to solve a range of challenges from increasing processor output and efficiency to delivering greater data centre space optimisation and reducing the energy waste and inefficiencies associated with air-cooling for greater data centre sustainability. Kelley is a dynamic and results-oriented problem solver who brings solid systems engineering know-how. With many industry accolades, she is also a champion for diversity and inclusion having personally developed initiatives for women and under-represented minorities.” Kelley says, “As a systems engineer I fixate on technical requirements in tandem with business requirements to drive solutions. Today, existing challenges to mitigate against the climate emergency are joined by the technological expedients of AI applications such as ChatGPT. These compute-intensive operations need the support of compute-intensive infrastructure. The limitations and inefficiencies of air cooling are well known. Only precision immersion liquid cooling can meet the environmental needs of all processor board components in a familiar form factor that fits with the way we design data centres and carry out moves, adds and changes. “With the focus on sustainability at Intel, I became familiar with all types of liquid cooling. When I appraised Iceotope’s technology, I saw complete differentiation from anything else in the market. In addition to all the benefits of liquid cooling, it offers high levels of heat reuse, almost completely eliminates the use of water, and offers greater compute density and scalability than other solutions like cold-plate and tank immersion. It is the technology of the future that I want to invest my calories in.” Kelley to build out Iceotope’s ecosystem With responsibilities for building and maintaining alliances with OEMs and technology partnerships, Kelley’s role will also make Iceotope technology more accessible to the wider market. The company currently has alliances with leading global vendors including IT giants, HPE and Lenovo, as well as physical infrastructure manufacturers, nVent and Schneider Electric, and technology supply chain specialists, Avnet. As things stand, Iceotope precision liquid cooling solutions can be supplied with a warranty almost anywhere around the globe. By augmenting its ecosystem with additional technology and channel partners, Iceotope can build upon its aptitude for ease of installation and use, to make precision liquid cooling the first choice for new data centre developments as well as upgrading existing facilities as operators strive for greater cooling efficiency and reliability, and increased operational sustainability. Engineered to cool the whole IT stack from hyperscale to the extreme edge, Iceotope’s patented chassis-level precision liquid cooling offers up to 96% water reduction, up to 40% power reduction, and up to 40% carbon emissions reduction per kW of ITE . Kelley, a champion for minorities in tech Kelley is passionate about diversity and inclusion. She has worked throughout her career to help prepare and resource women as well as other underrepresented minorities to be confident and successful in their own careers. In addition to creating programmes in the workplace, she has also invested her personal time in developing free-to-access online materials in support of greater equality in the workforce.

Aruba's MultiCloud Link: the solution to all public cloud platforms

95% of companies agree that multi-cloud architecture is now critical for the success of a business, and half of these companies believe that those who do not adopt this approach may be at risk of failure. This is according to VMware's Multi-Cloud Maturity Index, which shows that 'multi-strategies' are more instrumental in the rapid transformation of their business. In this context, Aruba presents its MultiCloud Link service, the private connectivity solution to all public cloud platforms. This proposal allows one or more connections from the infrastructure in colocation, private cloud or dedicated cloud to distributed environments on public cloud platforms (from Amazon Web Services to Microsoft Azure, up to Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud or IBM Cloud). The MultiCloud Link works through an end-to-end architecture: a physical device (router/firewall) within a data centre is connected to a cloud router in a BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) session, through which network routes are exchanged. In the case of a double circuit, it is the BGP that ensures the routing and balancing of traffic, and also determines any fault in a route. The MultiCloud Link is available in various bandwidths, up to 1Gbps, with the possibility of creating a 10Gbps link dedicated to the customer; the service can be adapted according to many needs and can also be used in managed mode, thanks to the skills of Aruba’s enterprise division’s team of solution architects and technical experts. In addition to its speed and competitive price, the main advantages of the new solution include security, since the connection is direct and private to the public clouds, without passing through the internet - and performance, since latency is certain, fundamental for mission critical applications. In addition to the main use cases of the MultiCloud Link highlight, it is also important to mention both colocation interconnection, which allows the colocation infrastructures hosted within the Aruba Data Centres to connect with the hyperscalers, and VM management, through which it is possible to manage the virtual machines distributed on various public cloud environments. In addition, the workload management, thanks to which the infrastructures that rely on the Aruba cloud can distribute the workloads in various environments; the DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) solutions and the Cloud Backup, which allows data distributed on public cloud infrastructures to be replicated in view of data sovereignty; the MultiCloud application, which allows the integration of the applications distributed on various public clouds; the peering between the hyperscalers, which favours the activation of interconnections with the hyperscalers in total security.  "One of the cornerstones of Aruba's cloud strategy is interoperability, i.e. the ability to make infrastructures - cloud, in this case - talk through common communication protocols and underlying technological standards," comments Massimo Bandinelli, Marketing Manager of Aruba Cloud. "The data centre and in this specific case the MultiCloud Link, a fundamental element of the Aruba cloud roadmap, enable this principle, thus allowing companies to simultaneously manage, in a multi-cloud perspective, workloads distributed on different public clouds, on the Aruba platform, on-premises or in the edge, and therefore address any needs of compliance, territoriality, latency, scalability."

Kingston Digital launches new data centre SSD

Kingston Digital has announced its new DC600M Enterprise SSD. DC600M is optimised for mixed-use workloads with excellent Quality of Service (QoS) to ensure latency and IOPS consistency to hit service-level agreements. DC600M is 6Gbps SATA 3.0 storage with 3D TLC NAND, suited for use in high-volume rack-mount servers. The drive includes hardware based on-board power loss protection via power loss capacitors to protect data against unexpected power failure reducing the risk of data loss, and ensures the drive successfully re-initialises on the next system power-up. With predictable low latencies over a wide range of read and write workloads DC600M is designed for system integrators, hyperscale data centres, and cloud service providers. “Quality of Service in an enterprise SSD is critical as data centres and workloads demand stability and low latency for predictable storage performance levels to meet strict customer SLAs,” says Tony Hollingsbee, SSD Business Manager, Kingston EMEA. “In addition, DC600M is AES 256-bit encrypted making it the optimal data centre storage solution when you combine its enterprise-class reliability and strict QoS requirements along with Kingston’s legendary sales support.” The DC600M data centre SSD is available in 480GB, 960GB, 1920GB, 3840GB and 7680GB capacities.

Arelion launches new route from Denver to the Bay Area

Arelion has launched a new route from Denver to the San Francisco Bay Area, connecting through Salt Lake City and Reno. This new route will serve the demand for high-capacity bandwidth services and diverse, low-latency connectivity options in these technology and hyperscale data centre markets. Arelion's network now provides enhanced resilience and flexibility, offering seamless edge connectivity through its fourth cross-country east-to-west-coast US route. As an early adopter in deploying open optical networking solutions, Arelion’s new route leverages the latest open optical line systems and supports multi-vendor transponders and coherent pluggable components to deliver multi-terabit scale capacity, enabling 10G, 100G and 400G Wavelengths deliveries with aggressive lead times for the global carrier’s customers. Arelion’s new Point-of-Presence (PoP) at Flexential’s Centennial campus expands the carrier’s Denver metro reach south, providing low-latency connectivity to Denver’s thriving scale data centers. With this enhanced metro flexibility, Arelion can also fully bypass Denver’s downtown legacy carrier hotels and avoid network congestion, providing added resiliency to its customers. Reno’s data centre market is also thriving, with Reno tech companies securing $1.4 billion in funding in 2021 and the region’s tech industry adding 41% of Northern Nevada’s new jobs in 2022. Arelion’s new PoP at the Switch Citadel campus in Tahoe Reno provides customers a cost-effective site for serving Northern California, with lower energy costs, renewable energy and more reliable connectivity with lower risk of natural disasters compared to some coastal regions. Utah’s Silicon Slopes region has become a hotbed of tech innovation and investment, attracting billions of dollars in funding. The region’s tech industry generates $19.1 billion annually, with a recent report showing tech jobs grew 6.5% in 2022. Arelion’s new route will serve the significant bandwidth and diversity requirements of Salt Lake City’s hyper scale demands, providing low-latency access to four core data centre campuses in the area. The global carrier’s new route also provides additional diversity to serve the rich Bay Area data centre ecosystem through diverse east and west Bay routing. "This network investment in Denver, Salt Lake City, Reno and the San Francisco Bay Area is in direct response to our customers’ growing technology demands,” says Wes Cantrall, Head of Sales in North America, Arelion. “We bring additional choices for diversity and high capacity to these regions, enabling us to meet companies’ terabit-scale needs in these evolving markets. Our ongoing commitment to connect growing edge markets across the country is a testament to our dedication to delivering best-in-class services that enable tech business growth in previously underserved regions." The new route will go live in late Q2. Further insights into Arelion’s North American network expansion: Routing west, Arelion’s new diverse network connects to Denver (Flexential - Centennial and CoreSite - DE1) and Aurora (Flexential) The route connects to Flexential sites in Fair Park and Salt Lake City. Additional Salt Lake City sites include EdgeConneX - SLC01 and DataBank - SLC1 and SLC2 in Bluffdale The network continues to Tahoe Reno (Switch - Citadel) Additional connectivity is provided to key Bay Area cities, including San Francisco (Digital Realty - SFO10), San Jose (Equinix - SV1), Palo Alto (Equinix - SV8), Santa Clara (CoreSite - SV4) and other colocation sites in the Bay Area With its fourth North American east-to-west coast route, Arelion provides enhanced access to its number one ranked Internet backbone, AS1299, as well as the global carrier’s portfolio of leading IP and optical technology services, including high-speed IP Transit, Cloud Connect, Ethernet and IPX services for service providers, content providers and enterprises.  

Vultr expands global footprint with new data centre location

Vultr has announced the latest expansion of its global footprint in Tel Aviv, Israel, to provide democratised access to cloud infrastructure to the growing technology ecosystem in the country. With the addition of Tel Aviv and its new location in Manchester, England, Vultr is continuing its cadence of global expansion by moving closer to eclipsing the data centre availability offered by the big three hyperscale cloud providers. The Tel Aviv data centre location puts Vultr on the map in Israel, where AWS and Azure have yet to establish availability zones. Vultr offers full-stack infrastructure in both Tel Aviv and Manchester, including cloud and GPU compute, Kubernetes clusters, managed databases, storage-as-a-service, and more. Establishing access to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in Israel is the latest advance in Vultr’s quest to provide full-stack infrastructure services in geographic regions underserved by the hyperscale cloud providers and democratise access to affordable cloud services for all organisations. Vultr’s availability in Tel Aviv now means that organisations with operations in Israel can access cloud compute infrastructure and services domestically to work locally and collaborate globally while maintaining data compliance and minimising costly data transfer fees. The same applies to Vultr’s Manchester data centre location, which complements Vultr’s presence in London and fortifies Vultr’s already-solid position in the UK and beyond. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, BBT.live uses Vultr for compute instances with its secured network connectivity solution, BeBroadband, enabling service providers to offer uncomplicated connectivity to their startup and enterprise customers around the world. “Vultr's adaptable model and exceptional engagement allow us to set up our Points of Presence (PoPs) on demand and deliver our services within a matter of hours rather than weeks to expand our business to new geographies rapidly,” says Erez Zelikovitz, EVP, Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Product Officer at BBT.live. “We are delighted that Vultr is available at a Tel Aviv data centre, close to our headquarters, which complements our already extensive list of locations across North America, Europe, and Asia where BeBroadband-Cloud PoPs are hosted.” “By bringing affordable, enterprise-grade cloud services to organisations around the world, Vultr is levelling the playing field for businesses striving to introduce breakthrough innovation in startup nations like Israel,” says J.J. Kardwell, CEO of Vultr’s parent company, Constant. “Vultr is breaking the big three hyperscalers’ stranglehold on customers in need of cloud infrastructure, who must endure the lock-in and exorbitant pricing associated with these inflexible cloud behemoths in exchange for IaaS access that isn’t customised to each organisation’s unique profile of needs.” Technology, digital, and cyber security startups, alongside established enterprises in the country, now need high-performance cloud resources. Vultr is stepping into the market to provide access to flexible cloud resources - spanning from bare metal options to GPU compute available on demand. Vultr ensures that access to these valuable resources isn’t limited to just the tech giants. Businesses looking to power generative AI solutions like ChatGPT or run other compute-intensive applications can now leverage the flexibility and cost-saving advantages Vultr brings to an ever-growing number of data centre locations. Vultr will host two events in Tel Aviv for the launch of its availability in Israel. A media breakfast briefing at The Norman Hotel on 16 May, from 9:30-10:30 am IST, and The industry event, Cloud as You Are, at Pop & Pope on 16 May, from 6:00- 8:00 pm IST.

VIRTUS announces new data centre campus in Berlin

VIRTUS Data Centres has announced plans to expand into continental Europe with the construction of its first data centre campus outside of the UK. The new data centre, VIRTUS BERLIN1, will be located in Germany's capital city and is set to be operational in 2026. Berlin is one of the fastest growing markets in Europe, making it a strategic location for VIRTUS' ongoing expansion. Built in Marienpark Berlin, the data centre campus will be easily accessible to both Berlin’s city centre, and its international airport. The Marienpark site is an innovation hub and home to a broad community of emerging technologies (including KI-Park Deutschland) which encompasses AI, critical infrastructure and additive manufacturing. The new data centre campus will be embedded into a larger ecosystem, enabling the growth of data and infrastructure-savvy businesses around the campus. With Marienpark’s special focus on entrepreneurs applying computational sciences and research-driven methods to their core business, VIRTUS will partner with the local network to seek novel ways to bring together the infrastructure and technical expertise needed to address computational challenges in modern artificial intelligence development with high performance computing. VIRTUS BERLIN1 will consist of four buildings with a total of at least 90MVA of incoming power. The data centres will be designed to serve hyperscale, government and enterprise customers and will provide a range of hosting and cloud services. VIRTUS is partnering with Investa, a real estate development company with more than 20 years of international data centre experience as the former e-Shelter development team, to develop VIRTUS BERLIN1. Investa’s local knowledge will help to accelerate VIRTUS' expansion into the continental European market. VIRTUS BERLIN1 will be connected to a waste heat distribution system provided by Marienpark, which is a collaboration of Investa and GASAG, further reinforcing VIRTUS' commitment to sustainability. Neil Cresswell, CEO of VIRTUS, says, "We're excited to bring our expertise and experience to Berlin and to expand our offering to customers in continental Europe. We also believe that our partnership - leveraging the local knowledge of a highly experienced European data centre developer like Investa - coupled with the leading operational expertise of VIRTUS obtained over 10 years of operating hyperscale and mission critical data centres in London, will be key to our success in this and other EU markets. We look forward to working with Investa to deliver a scalable world-class data centre campus in Berlin in a safe and sustainable manner." VIRTUS BERLIN1 is part of VIRTUS' wider European expansion plans, which aim to meet the increasing demand for data centres across the continent. With over a decade of experience in the data centre industry, VIRTUS is well-positioned to use its expertise to deliver reliable and secure data centre services to existing customers that are expanding into - as well as new customers who are already located in - continental Europe.

Console Connect and Macquarie Data Centres add new PoP in Sydney

The Console Connect Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform is now available at the Macquarie Data Centres campus in Macquarie Park, Sydney. The new data centre location is Console Connect’s fourth Point of Presence (PoP) in Sydney, a strategic choice given the growing relevance of Macquarie Park as hub of technological innovation in Sydney. The new PoP gives Macquarie Data Centres customers a fast and seamless way to extend their digital ecosystem by privately connecting to the world’s largest clouds, SaaS platforms and a network of over 900 data centres globally. This includes dedicated and on-demand connections to hyperscalers such as AWS, Google Cloud, Cloudflare, Salesforce, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and more. Through a single Access Port at the Macquarie Park Data Centre campus, businesses can access Console Connect’s full range of on-demand connectivity services, including: • On-demand metro, regional and international Layer 2 connections delivered across its own high-performance network, reaching over 900 data centres worldwide, including over 200 locations in Asia Pacific. • Premium business internet access delivered on-demand via its leading IP Tier 1 network (AS3941). • A leading multi-cloud connectivity solution called CloudRouter, which dynamically routes traffic to and between different cloud platforms.  • A remote peering service that provides access to leading Internet Exchanges, and bundles peering and end-to-end connectivity together through a single platform. Macquarie Data Centres operates a network of sovereign data centres strategically located in Australia’s innovation hubs across Sydney and Canberra.  Its Macquarie Park Data Centre campus is a state-of-the-art vendor-neutral facility including: • Australia's highest level of industry certifications and compliance program to federal government standards. • Globally award-recognised facilities team providing 24x7x365, engineering and critical support by over 200 government-cleared personnel. • Hyperscale ready, fully flexible and customisable design which is built to be able to scale fast.

Colt DCS extends its presence in Chiba, Japan

Colt Data Centre Services (Colt DCS) has announced the commencement of construction of its fourth data centre in Inzai City, Japan. Inzai City is located in the Chiba Prefecture, north east of Tokyo, Japan. This region is one of the most competitive areas for data centre real estate. Colt DCS’ Inzai 4 Data Centre has been designed to meet the needs of hyperscale cloud service providers and large enterprises that require scalable infrastructure. The site is located 600m from Colt Data Centre Services’ existing Inzai Campus and forms its fourth development in Inzai. This addition marks a further milestone in the company’s implementation of its global expansion strategy. Inzai 4 represents the second development under the joint venture between Fidelity Investments and Mitsui following the announcement of the opening of the first development in Osaka Keihanna in March 2023. Colt DCS was appointed by the joint venture as the exclusive service provider for the design, development, operations and customer service management for the venture. The design of the Inzai 4 data centre will build on Colt DCS’ key learnings in the Japanese market. It has a site area of 8,747m2 and a designed capacity of approximately 20MW, and is already 100% pre-let. The combined IT capacity of the extended Inzai campus is nearly 70MW. Inzai 4 is an attractive proposition for customers. The data centre facility is located in an area with resilient fibre and connectivity solutions, a strong bedrock and at a very low risk of natural disasters. It is easily accessible to customers and is located within close proximity to the three other Inzai data centres and Chiba New Town train station. Inzai 4 is approximately 30 minutes from Narita International Airport and 35 minutes from Tokyo by express train. The new data centre is expected to provide employment opportunities for 60 people. Niclas Sanfridsson, CEO Colt DCS says, “Colt DCS’ latest expansion within Inzai City is part of our long-term strategy to provide scalable growth for our customers with refined data centre design and proven experience. We are trusted by our customers to effectively build their digital infrastructure, as well as manage and operate their data centre with their scalability needs in mind. “We see this as an exciting opportunity to deepen our digital footprint and increase our IT capacity within the region. Colt DCS’ customer-centricity has always been at the heart of our operations and growth strategy, and we look forward to continuing our ethos with Inzai 4 - the fifth hyperscale data centre Colt DCS has built in Japan.”  The first phase of the Inzai 4 Data Centre is currently expected to be completed by the end of 2024.