Data Centre Magazine - April 2020

April 2021 | datacentremagazine.com

DATA CENTRE SUSTAINABILITY: Going green is no longer optional

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The DataCentre Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

HARRY MENEAR EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

SCOTT BIRCH CREATIVE TEAM

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIA FORTE SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

KIERAN WAITE

JAMES WHITE

OWEN MARTIN PHILLINE VICENTE JENNIFER SMITH

SAM KEMP EVELYN HUANG MATTHEW EVANS TYLER LIVINGSTONE

PRODUCTION EDITOR

DIGITAL MARKETING EXECUTIVE

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

DAISY SLATER

STACY NORMAN

PROJECT DIRECTORS

PRESIDENT & CEO

PRODUCTION MANAGERS

JENNIFER SMITH

LEWIS VAUGHAN STUART IRVING CRAIG KILLINGBACK

JASON WESTGATE MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

GLEN WHITE

EDITOR'S LETTER

Will Malaysia’s data centre industry die along with the cabotage exemption?

Welcome to the April edition of Data Centre Magazine.

This month, we’ll be continuing to cover the biggest trends creating an era of unprecedented change in the data centre space, from edge computing to the shadow of data gravity and how to break free from its pull.

“Thanks to Wee Ka Siong for his "brilliant" strategy of protecting one company at the expense of the nation's interest!”

DATACENTRE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Malaysia’s MyDigital blueprint aims to make the country the best-connected market in Southeast Asia. To make that happen, Malaysia wants to have the most submarine cable landing stations in the region by 2025. Now, that goal - as well as the career of Dr Wee Ka Siong, Malaysia’s transport minister - may be in jeopardy.

It’s all thanks to a decision Dr Wee made at the end of last year to revoke something called the cabotage exemption. In short, the exemption was a piece of legislation that allowed foreign-owned vessels to conduct maintenance on subsea cables in Malaysian waters. Now, only Malaysian companies can conduct these repairs, something which has sparked the ire the country’s previous transport minister, Anthony Loke Siew, who offered up a derisive “Thanks to Wee Ka Siong for his "brilliant" strategy of protecting one company at the expense of the nation's interest!”

Dr Wee has since rebuffed claims that the cabotage issue was behind Facebook’s decision to land the pivotal Bifrost cable in SIngapore instead of Malaysia, but the mess has continued to unfold, with the minister claiming that Facebook’s decision was made "because Malaysia doesn't have the data centre infrastructure,” which has sparked yet more outrage.

HARRY MENEAR

harry.menear@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 8

Big Picture

10 The Brief 12 Global News 14 People Moves 16 Timeline: Data Centres in Space 18 Legend:

Andy Jassy 20 Five Mins With:

Ed Galvin

44

Sustainability

Going Green is No Longer Optional

24

52

Setting the tone for socially responsible data centres

Investing in our Digital Future

Ark Data Centres

Landmark Dividend

72

Scala Data Centers

64

Think big to enable a connected future in Latin America

Networking

At the Rugged Edge of Innovation

88

96

AI and IoT in the Age of Data Gravity

The Gateway in and out of China

Technology

Chayora

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Technology Magazine is proud to launch a celebration of women in Global Technology.

Brought to you in association with:

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities in Technology

108

Critical Environments

Tape: an unexpected renaissance

118

KDDI Telehouse

Connectivity is our core strength

132 Top 10

Data Centre Brands

144

Digital Realty Leading the way in Asia Pacific

BIG PICTURE Going nuclear The value of a single Bitcoin has skyrocketed over the past year, with some experts believing the cryptocurrency will hit $59,000 per coin in 2021. While your average amateur miner doesn’t have the computing power at their disposal these days to get any kind of reasonable return on the Bitcoin that’s still out there, what if you had a 3 GW network of data centres and four nuclear power plants to play with? In a move that’s becoming increasingly popular in Russia and Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s government is building a massive cluster of data centres beside its nuclear power stations to mine Bitcoin and hold state secrets. The hunt for the remaining $84.2bn worth of Bitcoin just went nuclear.

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April 2021

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THE BRIEF “GLACIERS ARE SHRINKING, BIODIVERSITY IS COLLAPSING, AND WE JUST EXPERIENCED THE HOTTEST DECADE IN HUMAN HISTORY. INCREMENTAL STEPS ARE INSUFFICIENT”

BY THE NUMBERS Hyperscale Growth at Hyper-speed

Malcolm Johnson

Deputy Secretary General, ITU

READ MORE

“Our micro data centre at the Sagrada Família enables site operators to manage the church’s security and effectively control the millions of visitors that come to visit each year” Marc Garner

VP, Schneider Electric Secure Power Division READ MORE

“Tape has better longevity than almost any other medium. A flash drive won't last for 30 years, but a tape reel can” Andy Walls,

CTO, IBM Flash Systems

READ MORE

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April 2021

EDITOR'S CHOICE THE WORLD ACCORDING TO VERTIV We hear from a range of experts at global data centre operator Vertiv, who share their predictions, analysis and trends for the year.

READ MORE

SURVIVING THE “SILVER TSUNAMI” The data centre industry is going to need 300,000 new staff by 2025, but is already struggling to meet demand. At the same time, a whole generation of trained technicians and professionals are all approaching retirement age at once.

READ MORE

SUBMERGED SECURITY: HOW SAFE IS OUR UNDERWATER DATA? Chinese state-sponsored contractors could be putting data security at risk by compromising undersea cables.

READ MORE

NAME: THE CLIMATE NEUTRAL DATA CENTRE PACT AGE: THREE MONTHS, LONG OVERDUE APPEARANCE: THE FUTURE IS GREEN? What’s the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact?

Easily the most sweeping piece of sustainability reform in the history of the data centre industry, signed by pretty much every major data centre and cloud player you can think of.

So, Equinix?

Yep. Digital Realty?

Uh huh.

Microsoft?

You bet- look, just go read the list.

So, the data centre industry needs sustainability reform?

Like Tom Hanks needed a better friend than a volleyball. Data centres generate about 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and, with demand only expected to go up, data centres could soon be bigger polluters than the airline and automotive industries combined.

And the Pact is going to fix it?

Well, it’s a really good step in the right direction.

How, exactly?

By forcing the signatories to adopt some of the most aggressive emissions reduction strategies we’ve seen outside of some of the green data centre leaders like Google.

There’s a series of specific steps they need to take, but it boils down to purchasing 100% renewable energy, conserving water, and promoting a circular economy, all to make their data centres carbon neutral by 2030.

What happens if they don’t?

I’ll write mean stuff about them on Twitter.

 EMERGING MARKETS In Europe, secondary markets are going to account for a large portion of future growth, as established hubs like Amsterdam, London and Dublin face pushback on issues ranging from environmental impact to real estate prices.  LOW EARTH ORBIT BROADBAND SpaceX, Amazon, Telesat and OneWeb are all forging ahead with plans to deliver high speed connectivity from constellations of satellites in orbit above the Earth. .  CARBON EMISSIONS More and more operators and cloud providers are going green as the demand for decarbonisation from both customers and regulators continues to grow.  LABOUR POOL The data centre industry is going to add more than 300,000 new jobs by 2025.

Hiring managers are already struggling to fill existing demand for trained professionals. retirement age.

W A Y U P APR21

W A Y D O W N

GLOBAL NEWS 1

UNITED STATES

Microsoft is building a new data centre region near Atlanta The East US 3 region will have a presence in Fulton and Douglas county, Georgia, and coincides with the purchase of a 90 acre parcel of land in Atlanta. The involvement of the mayors of three towns within Fulton and Douglas counties points to the data centres being located in East Point, Douglasville and Palmetto. and water shortages.

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UNITED STATES

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ISRAEL

In Texas, data centres weather storm Uri

Oracle spins up its Jerusalem cloud bunker

When severe weather battered Texas and surrounding states in February, data centre operators like Equinix and Digital Realty demonstrated their facilities’ resilience by keeping the lights on and services running, even as millions experienced blackouts and water shortages.

In partnership with Bynet Communications, Oracle opened up one of the Middle East’s most impenetrable data centres, and Israel’s first public cloud facility, 50 metres beneath the streets of Jerusalem.

April 2021

5

RUSSIA

IXcellerate is building a 200MW campus in Moscow The campus will comprise several data centres, the first of which, Moscow Five, will come online in Q3 of this year, with an initial deployed capacity of 4MW and Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute.

In early 2022, a further 8MW will be brought online. Upon completion, the campus will have a total capacity of 200MW, making it the largest data centre campus in Russia to date.

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INDIA

The Hiranandani Group’s astonishing expansion continues

4

HONG KONG

Mapletree enters the Hong Kong market Mapletree Investments is making its first foray into the Hong Kong data centre industry - a market which is estimated to account for approximately half of all APAC data centre spending - with the purchase of a 4,000 sqm plot in Fanling. Theland will be home to a multi-storey data centre with 20,140 sqm of floor space, capable of delivering up to 50MVA of power.

Through its parent organisation, the Hiranandani Group, Yotta is planning a $1.1bn, 100 acre, 250MW hyperscale data centre campus and logistics centre in Kolkata, West Bengal. The Group is betting big on a data centre boom in India over the coming years. By the end of 2021, the group will have invested around Rs 15,000 crore ($1.65bn) across its projects in Navi Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai.

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PEOPLE MOVES STEPHEN LIANG FROM: VERTIV TO: VERTIV WAS: PRESIDENT, APAC NOW: CTO In a major reshuffle of its executive team, the President of Vertiv’s APAC operations, Stephen Liang, has been promoted into the newly-created role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In his new role, Liang will take on responsibility for Vertiv’s ongoing innovation strategy, aligning and prioritising the company’s technology direction with the needs of its customers. The role was created in response to Vertiv’s decision to pour more money and resources into its research and development over the coming years.

Liang, who has worked at Vertiv since 1994, says he is “looking forward” to bringing “greater focus on the customer experience” to everything Vertiv does.

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April 2021

SUNIL SHENOY FROM: SIFIVE TO: INTEL WAS: SVP NOW: SVP OF DESIGN ENGINEERING GROUP It’s been a good few months for prodigal sons returning to Intel. Shortly after the announcement that Pat Gelsinger would come back to the US semiconductor giant, Intel also announced the return of Sunil Shenoy, who has taken on the role of Senior Vice President and GM of the company’s Design Engineering Group. Shenoy’s return marks a new era of leadership in the pursuit of designing and manufacturing new and better chips for data centre applications.

SCOTT BALLOCH FROM: BT TO: COLT DATA CENTRE SERVICES WAS: DIRECTOR, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT UNIT NOW: DIRECTOR OF ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY As Colt Data Centre Services ramps up its sustainability initiatives, the company has also welcomed Scott Ballock as the its new Director of Energy and Sustainability. Balloch comes to the role from his previous position as Director of the Energy and Environmental Unit at BT, where he was responsible for leading the decarbonisation efforts surrounding the telecom’s 40+ data centres.

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TIMELINE ABOVE THE CLOUD: DATA CENTRES IN SPACE What seemed like a mixture of science fiction and pure speculation a decade ago is poised to become reality. As launching satellites into orbit becomes cheaper and more available, the potential for low earth orbit (LEO) equipment, combined with terrestrial data centres to deliver high-speed, wide-coverage connectivity from space is getting closer to being realised every day. Everyone, from SpaceX and Amazon, to Telesat, Cloud Constellation and OrbitsEdge are racing towards the new connectivity frontier.

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2016

2017

2018

Startup Cloud Constellation secures its Series A funding round to build SpaceBelt, an information “UltraHighway” providing independent space-based network infrastructure for cloud service providers, enterprises and governments. The goal: use a network of satellites to securely store sensitive data in space.

Cloud Constellation is awarded a US patent for its LEO communications platform, founded on the technology’s ability to transfer large blocks of data quickly and securely without exposure to any terrestrial communications infrastructure.

SpaceX drives down the prices of launching cargo into space, advertising itself by launching Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla roadster into space. SpaceX quotes haulage costs as low as $2,000/kilo, reducing the theoretical expense of launching a single-rack micro data centre into LEO to around $8mn.

April 2021

2020 AWS announces the formation of a new aerospace and satellite solutions business unit led by the retired Air Force General who set up the US Space Force. Over the next few months, Amazon pours $10bn into project Kuiper, aiming to establish space-based cloud computing by launching over 3,000 LEO satellites.

2020 Microsoft announces Azure Space, a partnership with SpaceX Starlink that promises to bring together an ecosystem of satellite providers to deliver spacebased broadband to a network of edge data centres on the ground.

Although it doesn’t use satellites for data storage and processing, it enhances the current use of spacesuitable hardware and satellite infrastructure.

2021 Startup OrbitsEdge will put a high-powered HPE EL 8000 micro data centre into orbit, delivering spacenative computing power that is comparable to what a terrestrial HPC facility can deliver on Earth.

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LEGEND

Andy Jassy

Father of the modern cloud and Amazon's new CEO

A

relative unknown outside his own industry, incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is far from being one of the biggest names in tech. He likes to stay out of the limelight, letting people like Elon Musk and his boss, Jeff Bezos, soak up public attention with grand statements, publicity stunts and problematic rants on Twitter.

Make no mistake though, there are few people in the world who have had more influence over the modern internet than Andy Jassy. As the head of Amazon Web Services since its inception in 2003, in many respects, Jassy is the father of the modern cloud.

Over the past 15 years since its launch in 2006, AWS has reshaped the modern internet, taking the internetas-a-service approach and turning it from a crackpot moonshot that attracted the derision of established technology giants, and turning it into the foundation of the digital age.

Amazon might be best known for its massive fulfilment centres and nextday delivery, but AWS is its beating heart and one of its biggest earners 18

April 2021

Sales in Q4 of 2020

$12bn

raking in over $12bn in sales in Q4 of 2020 alone. A large element of AWS’ success can be attributed to Jassy’s own philosophy of bigger is better and putting the customer first, explaining that “If you go with the platform that has the most capabilities and the right tools for the job, it not only makes it easier to migrate all your existing applications, but also to enable your builders to build anything they can imagine,” in a keynote speech at AWS re:Invent 2020. He added that AWS is a “customer-focused” organisation through and through (back in 2017 he publicly criticised rival cloud provider Oracle for their high rates and customer lock-in contracts), saying that, “What we build is driven by what you tell us matters to you. And even if you can’t articulate a feature, we try to read between the lines, understand what you are trying to build and invent on your behalf.”

Jassy’s appointment to the position of Amazon CEO was announced in February, and he is expected to take over the role some time in Q3 of this year.

“What we build is driven by what you tell us matters to you. And even if you can’t articulate a feature, we try to read between the lines, understand what you are trying to build and invent on your behalf” datacentremagazine.com

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5MINS WITH...

ED GALVIN IS THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF DC BYTE, AN INDEPENDENT ANALYTICS PLATFORM BRINGING TRANSPARENCY AND CLARITY TO THE DATA CENTRE SECTOR. WE SAT DOWN WITH HIM TO DISCUSS THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY AS WE MOVE INTO Q2 OF 2021.

Q. WHAT’S DC-BYTE'S SCOPE OF STUDY AND WHAT KIND OF METRICS DO YOU TRACK?

» DC Byte is a real-time online

information platform. It is the first of its kind to map and track the performance of the entirety of the global data centre sector and includes legacy data centres, modern colocation facilities and hyperscale self-build projects. Our coverage allows us to track the trends that one-off, static, or sector-limited research can’t pick up.

Q. ARE YOU SEEING THE IMPACT OF COVID ON THE DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY CHANGE AS WE ENTER THE SECOND YEAR OF THE PANDEMIC?

» We have noticed a significant

increase in the amount of capacity that has been added to the market.

In EMEA, for example, the new development pipeline increased by 20% in 2020 compared to the previous year, with over 1,600 MW added. In 2019 many new schemes were announced, but in 2020 we saw the triggering of these schemes into actual development.

Q. WHAT ARE THE OTHER KEY TRENDS YOU'RE SEEING HIT THE INDUSTRY IN 2021?

» The unmistakable trend is one of

increased data centre development outside of the traditional core markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Dublin and Paris.

Throughout 2020, for example, take-up across EMEA rose 10%, but when we look at where this growth is, 85% was in the non-core markets.

20

April 2021

“ WE HAVE NOTICED A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF CAPACITY THAT HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE MARKET” Q. WHY ARE SOME MARKETS PERFORMING BETTER THAN OTHERS?

Q. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HAPPEN IN THE INDUSTRY THIS YEAR?

view it is a combination of push factors, such as high land prices and grid power constraints in the core markets, and pull factors like increased access to local talent pools, spreading infrastructure investment across a wider number of countries, hedging against future data sovereignty law changes, and reducing unnecessary data backhaul across networks.

more power, they will face increased pressure to support the ESG agenda.

More support for more sustainability in the sector should be a priority for both customers and investors. I think a degree of government regulation would help to create a level playing field where operators are required to include certain ‘easy wins’ such as heat recovery, but also the phasing out of diesel generators in favour of enhanced battery storage.

» The reasons are many, but in my

» As data centres consume ever

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ARK DATA CENTRES

SETTING THE TONE FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DATA CENTRES WRITTEN BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE

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April 2021

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

ARK DATA CENTRES

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ARK DATA CENTRES

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April 2021

ARK DATA CENTRES

Empowering businesses to work from anywhere in the world with mission critical facilities fueled by 100% green energy

A

rk Data Centres specialise in the design, construction and operation of high integrity data centres which lead the market in sustainability, deliver optimum security, combined with the highest levels of availability. Ark’s objective is to industrialise the data centre market, eliminating the errors and costs associated with one-off custom-built solutions; favouring the inherent quality, improved performance and economies of a modular, manufactured solution.

The green agenda Industry leaders like Amazon, Microsoft and Google are driving uptake in the data centre market and have made categorical statements about their sustainability goals and how they will be achieved. Ark Data Centres openly share similar values and is approaching business in a different way says its CEO Huw Owen.

“There’s been too much greenwashing and not enough action,” he says. “We don't think that's good enough, because it's not addressing the actual problems in a meaningful way that effects real change.

The data centre industry is hungry on power and water so we need to develop a fit for purpose green agenda.”

The last decade has seen a huge and exponential growth in the use of data highlights Owen. “We’re seeing growth in the hundreds of percent when it comes to the amount of storage and power we’re offering. And if you actually look at the growth in power usage, it isn't matching it. Evidently, some good things

have been done to control that, but more needs to be done. And what's achieved that in large part is getting out of the old sweaty real estate data center sites into more modern and sustainable footprints.”

Ark’s goal is to create socially responsible data centres via a journey of continuous improvement towards sustainability objectives that benefit both its customers and the planet.

Net-Zero connectivity Ark has been sourcing green energy since 2015. All of its facilities are now powered by 100% renewable energy using purely natural sources. “Our customers benefit from the lowest renewable energy prices available in the UK market, while dramatically lowering their own carbon footprint,” reveals Owen.

It’s a fundamental approach that informs each stage of Ark’s design, build and operations cycle. All existing sites which have datacentremagazine.com

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www.gratte.com

Specialists in mission critical systems

Telephone 020 7837 6433

Gratte Brothers Group

Gratte Brothers: Mechanical & Electrical Precision Enabling modular and sustainable data centre solutions with resilient engineering Gratte Brothers is a third-generation family business, established in 1946 that has been offering combined M&E solutions for over 35 years; its first data centre project dates back to 1995. During the last six years the company has consistently delivered 30 megawatts of IT power to the mission critical construction market every year.

Resilient “We offer specialist knowledge when it comes to resilient engineering services” assures Gratte’s Engineering Director, Remi Suzan. “We’ve worked with DC supply chains for decades, and have good relationships with our manufacturers and specialist subcontractors.

Our contract engineers, site managers, and in-house commissioning teams don’t just understand how they work, but ‘why’ they need to work that way, and they bring that deep knowledge to every project.”

Modular Gratte Brothers has worked with Ark for over a decade; an integral part of its partner ecosystem developing modular DC solutions with low energy consumption

at their core. “ Together with Ark’s other partner contractors, we worked on developing a modular energy centre that could be associated with the prefabricated data centres that could then be deployed either as a single unit or as multiple units, depending on what Ark needed at the time,” confirms Suzan.

“The energy centres containing the UPSs and LV panels were all provided with a cooling system designed on external fresh air. It was calculated that for 98% of the year it could operate without mechanical cooling which was only required in exceptional circumstances at high-peak summer periods.”

Sustainable “Ark are way ahead of the game when it comes to sustainability,” reckons Suzan. “Their approach is more than just a green message on their website; they really mean it. Now that we can use adiabatic fresh air cooling systems for IT equipment with heat recovery in all of our air solutions, allied with the use of photovoltaic panels and LED lighting, energy efficiency has greatly improved.”

Engineering energy efficient data centres

Learn more Learn more now

ARK DATA CENTRES

historically leveraged diesel generators are in the process of being transitioned to bio-diesel.

For every new London facility Ark is committed to eliminating diesel by deploying back-up gas generators proven to run effectively on up to 30% hydrogen. “We support the UK’s ambition to incrementally increase the hydrogen mix in its utility gas network and we are pushing hard for the tests to be completed which will allow 100% usage,” adds Owen.

“Our campuses are ecologically level and feature green areas where wildlife can 30

April 2021

coexist. We have eco-toilets on our sites that save thousands of litres of water each year.

We’ve also extended our typical rainwater harvesting process to capture water from the roof but also from the run-off of the car parks which can then be filtered and stored.

It may involve a more intense filtration process but by re-using this water, we only use the mains to top up the rainwater supply as required, significantly reducing our usage.”

Water consumption is a key example where a data centre could either potentially

ARK DATA CENTRES

add to the problem or employ some innovative thinking. That’s why the team at Ark has developed a water buffering and saving mode for its cooling equipment which reduces the utility water supply requirement from 33 litres to just five litres per second (reducing its original peak water usage by a staggering 85%).

Ark’s net zero approach is the adoption of an ethos, not just a box-ticking exercise. Its waste management strategy is to become a “zero waste to landfill business” by reducing

the unnecessary use of raw materials.

Simultaneously, Ark aims to encourage re-use of materials and products, and reduce waste to landfill through recycling, composting or energy recovery, leading to a lower environmental impact and positive carbon reductions.

Modular data centre design “We’ve partnered with Bladeroom since 2011 developing our ‘data centre in a box’ concept,” explains Ark’s Director of Design, datacentremagazine.com

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Creating A More Responsible Digital Future BladeRoom are global leaders in the provision of highly energy–efficient data centres, manufacturing a sustainable and scalable solution capable of being deployed anywhere in the world.

Watch the future for sustainable data centres

Socially Responsible Data Centres For many businesses, improving sustainability now sits squarely at the top of the agenda and it’s a principle we share with the customers we serve. That’s why our data centres are designed around innovative technology that is proven to dramatically reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

A BladeRoom data centre, with its latest technological advances, uses zero mechanical cooling or refrigerants, and can operate at an annualised PUE of 1.04. This represents less than 4% of the total energy required to power the entire data centre and compared to the industry average, it is over 10 times more efficient. At the scale of a 100MW BladeRoom campus, situated in the UK, this results in annual carbon emission savings of up to 110,000 tonnes.

The real and significant reductions in carbon footprint that we are helping our clients to deliver today are the result of our 10-year commitment to innovation and continuous improvement and it is our mission to continue this journey towards a better and more responsible digital future.

Data Centres Don’t Get Any Cooler Than This BladeRoom facilities use an advanced cooling system, maximising free, filtered, ambient air with evaporative cooling. Free cooling is available for up to 100% of the time depending on the climate and supply air setpoints - saving significant cost and carbon emissions.

Rather than re-circulating and cooling the hot air from the IT as with traditional data centre cooling, a BladeRoom data centre operates like a server by drawing in highly filtered fresh air, intelligently matching air supply to IT demand and exhausting or partially recirculating warm air from the data centre as required.

Evaporative and free cooling enables the IT equipment to be cooled with supply air temperatures of between 18°C and 30 °C for more than 99% of the year in the UK without the need for mechanical cooling across a range of IT loads, still performing efficiently at 15% utilisation of racks.

Why ‘Factory-First’ Matters By manufacturing our data centres in our 110,000ft2 factory, we offer a sustainable alternative to site-based construction which in turn, provides a more resource-efficient way to create socially responsible facilities.

Our ‘Factory-first’ production approach allows deliveries to be made to the factory in bulk from local suppliers, minimising transport and heavy goods emissions. Materials are tightly controlled which dramatically reduces waste, with noise and pollution levels minimised, and site-based operational risks are transferred to a more secure environment.

Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more about our commitment to a responsible digital future.

LEARN MORE

ARK DATA CENTRES

Construction & Operations, Andy Garvin.

“Built off-site, delivered by lorry and then re-erected on site within 14 days of leaving the manufacturing facility it was our first approach towards a volumetric solution.”

Now focused on a flat pack solution that can be built off the cladding on site, the design has been developed through various iterations over the past decade to reduce waste and cost. “We’ve developed a really efficient approach with dedicated factory space for Bladeroom to 'build-to- order' for our clients. The standardisation they’ve been able to offer has been really important.

We've worked closely with Bladeroom, particularly around the cooling technologies 34

April 2021

- we use indirect and direct air solutions.

The majority of our data centers are direct air, which allows fresh air to come in. It's conditioned, filtered and then approaches the OT space and is either exhausted or recirculated, depending on the conditions within the room.”

Ark also works alongside Bladeroom with Gratte Brothers and JCA to develop improved energy centre solutions. “Gratte Brothers and JCA are our preferred mechanical and electrical engineering partners,” confirms Garvin. Ark were also keen to modularise this process so together the partners came up with a unique solution which not only utilises

ARK DATA CENTRES

“ The data centre industry is hungry on power and water so we need to develop a fit for purpose green agenda”

HUW OWEN TITLE: CEO INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: WILTSHIRE, UK Huw Owen joined Ark in November 2012 as Chief Executive Officer to lead a new management team following the recapitalisation of the company. He has held key roles at a number of organisations, including BT Global Services and HP Defence & Security.

Previous roles across a diverse career include Chief Executive of the Atlas Consortium, delivering the Ministry of Defence DII (Defence Information Infrastructure) programme.

Owen also worked for the Asia Foundation, formulating and driving national reform programmes in Cambodia, as well as advising the United Nations on their efforts in Central Asia. Before this, he served with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, latterly as a Detective Inspector.

HUW OWEN

CEO, ARK DATA CENTRES

Partnering with the UK Government The UK government utilises a disparate set of data centres of varying scales and efficiencies. Entering the fray when a tender was held in 2013, Ark subsequently won through to secure a deal to partner with the UK Cabinet Office in a joint venture to create Crown Hosting Data Centres to deliver increased efficiency, improved value, and transparency of data centre hosting utilisation across the entire UK Public Sector. Doing just that, Ark delivered £105m in savings which contributed towards over £2bn in savings for the UK government.

EXECUTIVE BIO

the data center cooling to cool the energy center, but also allows Ark to build the energy center off site - improving health and safety while reducing material waste and cost.

“Though competitors in the market, Gratte Brothers and JCA are both familyrun businesses that integrate well with Ark,” says Garvin. “They’re really adaptable and always looking to innovate. When we need to ensure speed to market, and in times of crisis like we’ve experienced during the pandemic, we rely on these partnerships to deliver safely to our customers.”

BUILDING THE FUTURE Drawing on a wealth of industry experience, Sweet Projects design and construct specialist buildings for our clients across the Defence, Aerospace and Data industries with unrivalled levels of focus and service.

sweet-projects.com

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SWEET PROJECTS AND ARK DATA CENTRES: CUTTING-EDGE BUILDINGS

WATCH NOW

Sweet Projects’ Robert Smart discusses the data centre construction specialist’s philosophy and its close partnership with Ark Data Centres.

worked together for over 14 years, growing and supporting Ark’s development to become one of the UK’s foremost data centre providers."

Sweet Projects are turnkey Design and Build contractors operating in the UK & Europe and provide specialised services to the Advanced Technology, Data and Commercial sectors, as Robert Smart, Executive Director at the company, explains:

Going forwards, Smart is clear that the company is poised to evolve with the latest technologies as they emerge. “Complex projects call for complex solutions and the key area of growth in the last few years has been around the use of Information Technology.

At Sweet Projects, we have a clearly defined and continually evolving Digital Strategy which allows us to invest and embrace cutting—edge advances in construction technology to continue to improve our offering — from Building Information Modelling, which allows us to coordinate from design to construction, to Geo-enabled Technologies and Biometrics which set us apart in the physical delivery of projects.” It’s thanks to this approach that Sweet Projects is confident that the partnership with Ark will continue going from strength to strength. “Through these, we can meet the ever-growing demand for security of process and certainty of outcome that our partnership with Ark is based upon. Sharing knowledge through digitised platforms, we take our collaboration to the next level — which ultimately drives future success.”

“Sweet Projects’ modus operandi is simple — provide excellent service and delivery consistent with the expectations of our key clients across the Defence, Data and Aerospace industries. Upholding those values requires being laser-focused on the needs of clients as well as workers. “Our management team consists of high-calibre people with experience across the construction industry,” says Smart. “We are passionate about ensuring safe working environments and protecting the personal health and wellbeing of our employees and supply chain.

Health and safety is always at the forefront of our operations.”

The company is a committed and long-term partner of UK data centre firm Ark Data Centres. “We are committed to working with and for Ark and to this end, with each other, to deliver for the long-term, providing a strong legacy for Ark’s customers and stakeholders.

Testament to our exceptional relationship, founded on delivery and innovation, we've

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ARK DATA CENTRES

Huw Owen from Ark Data Centres talks about sustainability

“ Gratte Brothers and JCA are both familyrun businesses that integrate well with Ark. They’re really adaptable and always looking to innovate” ANDY GARVIN

DIRECTOR OF DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION & OPERATIONS, ARK DATA CENTRES

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“There's a joint board which sits between the government and Ark,” explains Owen.

“The framework – procurement, vetting, security and pricing – is pre-done. Instead of having to do procurement, if you take a pound of government money you can utilise that framework, save your management time, save your expense of procurement, and you can use our facilities. We’re highly flexible, you can take it for a month, you can take it for five years, take your reversion release at the end a highly compelling offer. We've been through UK government benchmarking exercises and been found to be right up in the top quartile.”

In terms of sustainability goals, Owen estimates that Ark’s involvement has taken the equivalent of 140,000 cars off the road in

ARK DATA CENTRES

CONNECTIVITY COOLED WITHOUT COMPROMISE Direct Air Cooled Data Centre – Operating free cooling 99% of the year, Ark’s Direct Air technology offers the perfect choice to lower a company’s footprint while also lowering costs. Convenient, green and efficient data centres, with world leading PUE performances.

DID YOU KNOW...

carbon savings. The joint venture, accounting for around 45% of Ark’s business. has been extended to 2023 as the UK government seeks to further transform its data centre footprint.

Trusted by governments and multinationals alike to deliver flexible and reliable data centre solutions, each new project and partnership is more than just another business transaction for Ark. “A few years back we went through a branding exercise,” recalls Owen. “Our clients were asked to be brutally honest. Their feedback?

‘They’re capable’, ‘A breath of fresh air to do business with’ and most importantly of all, ‘They care’. So, we don’t court awards and adulation, we’re discreet and listen to our customers.”

Indirect Air Cooled Data Centre – Maintaining its industry leading PUE figures, Ark’s Indirect Air Cooled facilities use high tech adiabatic coolers and specifically designed heat exchangers to let companies choose their perfect data centre cooling configuration.

Chilled Water Data Centre – Delivering the most robust physical security available, Ark’s mechanical and electrical infrastructure has been developed to compliment the enhanced physical environment while still providing signature benefits – high flexibility and reliability.

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a fully integrated service provider for data centre infrastructure engineering led principal contractor with a proven track record of designing, building and maintaining award-winning and energy efficient data centres

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design | build | maintain

JCA: dynamic data centre engineering

Watch JCA discuss engineering and their relationship with Ark Data Centres

Providing robust and scalable infrastructure solutions to enable the secure growth of IT systems JCA offers trusted world class engineering services to the data centre sector. Working across the design, construction, operation and maintenance of mission critical facilities for 17 years, JCA takes a holistic view with a pragmatic approach to the benefits and pitfalls of resilient engineering strategies.

Expertise “When working with clients like Ark, we appreciate what drives their business and understand their key business goals,” confirms JCA’s Managing Director Tom Absalom. “Engineering expertise we hold can be applied to support our partners’ business plans and market offering. In recent years, we’ve made great strides in terms of reduced CapEx and OpEx, albeit with increased availability and enhanced environmental credentials.”

Innovation Keeping pace with the evolutionary cycle of incremental gains, JCA ensures the products it develops and deploys are enhanced over those that have gone before. “That can only happen when you work with organisations with shared goals and strategies for the entire supply chain,” says Absalom. “We make sure everyone is aligned towards a single aim. During our time working with Ark we’ve

progressed through some revolutionary concept designs which have trickled down into the world-class products you see them operating today.”

Aspiration “Ark’s commitment to sustainability creates an aspiration for JCA to deliver,” maintains the company’s Chairman and Founder Ian Jackson. “It’s the perfect partnership for us to showcase our desire and commitment to invest in the lifecycle of a building asset through the implementation of new digital building technologies. Equally, we’re investigating and testing new disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence to improve waste management controls and also provide the strategic direction to leverage real-time information from other construction sites throughout the country.

“We’re fortunate to have customers that share our values and appreciate the advantage collaborative partnerships can bring on a long-term basis. At JCA continuous improvement is key as we strive to enhance our consistency and processes.”

Learn more Learn more now

CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT

ARK DATA CENTRES

ARK DATA CENTRES CEO, HUW OWEN LISTS SIX OF ITS FACILITIES SETTING THE TONE FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DATA CENTRES IN THE UK Spring Park, Corsham - 30mw under live operation, 27mw under design & build “Spring Park is where the British government were going to regress in the event of nuclear war - a million square feet of underground space where they once manufactured munitions and fighter planes. Very dense in power and fibre, it’s an excellent site.”

Cody Park, Farnborough - 32mw under live operation, 17mw under design & build “When I joined the company in 2012 Cody Park was just a plot of land with two derelict buildings, a large muddy field, and a pond. We’ve come a long way…”

Meridian Park, Enfield - 7.5 mw under live operation, 8.5mw under design & build “Meridian Park features a private wire straight into a waste generation plant.

It's absolutely compelling, both on an economic basis but also on that green agenda so we can give our customers

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a real, total cost of ownership, which really encourages them to come in for 100% green power.”

Union Park, Hayes - 75mw under design & build, 150mva dedicated site power “We’re planning to create our biggest and most ambitious, facility to date at Union Park which promises to set the tone for socially responsible data centres in the UK. We’re optimising power options to make sure what we build together with our clients will be configured to allow them to be as energy efficient and sustainable as possible.”

Longcross Park, Chertsey - 30mw under design & build, 90mba dedicated site power “We’re creating a purpose built 385,000 square foot facility. The data centre campus is part of the Enterprise M3 zone and is the first commercial development on the 300acre Longcross Garden Village.”

Alliance Park (Park Royal), London - under planning consultation, going live 2023 “We were delighted to acquire the Alliance Park site from Renault Retail Group. Our customers have an expectation for us to be both socially responsible, as well as provide best-in-class, market leading data centres in the locations where we can have the greatest impact. The exciting acquisition of Park Royal, our third in London, not only supports Ark’s own sustainability commitments but also empowers the customers we serve by helping them to honour their own carbon reduction goals.”

ARK DATA CENTRES

“There’s a great quote from a famous speech that Theodore Roosevelt gave at the Sorbonne in 1919: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great

devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

“I like to think that at Ark, we and our partners are that man striving to instigate the change that can create a Darwinian moment for the planet.”

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DATA CENTRES

GOING GREEN IS NO LONGER OPTIONAL From the hyperscale to the edge, sustainability is essential to the future of the data centre industry.

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR 44

April 2021

DATA CENTRES

A

lthough it was overshadowed somewhat by the pandemic, civil unrest around the globe, and a pivotal election in the US, 2020 was a significant milestone in a long, long line of increasingly severe climate disasters.

“From deadly wildfires to severe flooding, landslides to tsunamis, all parts of the globe are being affected by climate change,” warns Malcolm Johnson, Deputy Secretary General of the ITU, a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for all matters relating to the ITC sector.

Over the past year, the combined influences of the COVID-19 pandemic and a sweeping digitalisation of

global economies have made digital infrastructure more mission critical than ever, as millions of people have made the shift to working, learning and socialising remotely. The massive global uptick in digital traffic is generating unprecedented demand for data centre infrastructure, spurred on even more by the worldwide rollout of 5G, growth in data analytics, and the exponential explosion of the internet of things (IoT).

In the face of historic demand and a global boom that saw 96% of data centre professionals surveyed in a study by ABB Power Conversion report increased demand during 2020, data centre datacentremagazine.com

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Between hope and possible there’s a bridge.

There from the beginning to where we stand today. And to where we will go from here. One company. One promise.

If you can imagine it, we will build the bridge to get you there.

DATA CENTRES

“ The US needs to revamp its infrastructure and stop using fossil fuels to power the digital transformation era” SUSANNA KASS

ENERGY FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

operators are faced with a monumental challenge: meet this demand while also curtailing the environmental impact of one of the planet’s most powerintensive industries.

“The US needs to revamp its infrastructure and stop using fossil fuels to power the digital transformation era,” says Susanna Kass, a clean energy advocate and energy fellow at Stanford University. “It is imperative to commit to using renewable energy, to revamp clean

energy infrastructure, and to build a more sustainable future.”

A Big Step in the Right Direction In January of this year, some of the largest data centre operators and leading cloud companies in the industry collectively signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, including Equinix, Digital Realty, Interxion, Google and NTT. In total, 25 companies and 17 associations signed the agreement, making the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact the most significant and sweeping sustainability and climate reform action embarked up in the industry’s history.

Signatories to the pact will need to set aggressive targets for reducing carbon emissions between 2025 and 2030, including, proving energy efficiency with datacentremagazine.com

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DATA CENTRES

The Path to a Greener Industry The four best ways to move your data centre in the right direction and source green energy, according to Digital Realty, one of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact signatories, 1. Buy Green: many local utility companies have an option to supply data centres exclusively green power. The more data centre operators that pursue this option, the more utility companies that will find new ways to meet the demand, lowering the overall grid’s dependence on fossil fuels. However, utility companies tend to charge premium rates for their green power mix, despite the fact that the energy is often cheaper for them to generate.

2. Carbon Credits: easily the leastsustainable option, and one that has received widespread criticism for its practice of simply pushing the problem further down the road. Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are credits that a business can purchase from third parties (sometimes government sponsored) that invest the money into green technology research and carbon offset programs. It’s better than nothing, but the time for half measures is long past.

3. PPAs: many larger cloud and hyperscale data centre operators are opting for this approach, because of the high CapEx and the economies of scale needed to make it feasible. A direct power purchase agreement commits the operator to

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buying the “power and RECs produced by a wind farm, solar installation, or other renewable project at a fixed price, typically for a period of 10 to 25 years.” While most companies don’t consume enough energy to merit a power purchase agreement, which are rarely smaller than 20 MW, aggregate demand packages and power sharing cooperative agreements between consortiums of smaller operators are becoming increasingly common.

4. Do it Yourself: the most direct route is for operators to take matters into their own hands, building on-site solar or wind powered energy capture infrastructure.

Data centres typically need a lot more energy than can be generated onsite, so many operators that take this approach tend to combine it with one or more of the options above, using their in-house wind turbines of photovoltaic farms to supplement their supply, reducing their dependence on the grid.

DATA CENTRES

“Glaciers are shrinking, biodiversity is collapsing, and we just experienced the hottest decade in human history.

Incremental steps are insufficient” MALCOLM JOHNSON DEPUTY SECRETARY GENERAL, ITU

measurable targets, purchasing 100% carbon-free energy, prioritising water conservation, reusing and repairing servers rather than replacing them, and exploring new ways to reuse excess heat from their facilities. The goal: for every company on a list that handily includes the owners of more than half the data centres on the planet to make every single one of their facilities carbon neutral by 2030.

It’s a big ask in an industry that was already expected to grow by as much as 15.1%

every year until 2025 before the pandemic kicked global demand into overdrive. “The pledge made by the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact is achievable. It is ambitious and challenging but it is achievable,” says Kass.

But is it enough?

At out current rates of consumption, incremental, market-based approaches to solving the climate crisis are no longer an option. Prioritising continuous, unsustainable growth in everything from revenues to datacentremagazine.com

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DATA CENTRES

“ The pledge made by the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact is achievable. It is ambitious and challenging but it is achievable” SUSANNA KASS

ENERGY FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

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DATA CENTRES

shareholder dividends over - or even equally when compared to - the needs of our planet simply isn't good enough.

“Glaciers are shrinking, biodiversity is collapsing, and we just experienced the hottest decade in human history.

Incremental steps are insufficient,” says Johnson.

“It is not enough,” adds Kass. “I am a computer scientist. I follow science and use data; hence I am a strong advocate for the fact we need to measure our progress with GHG emissions reporting and sustainability calculator in form of metrics. It is an opportune time now for close collaboration between the public (federal, state and cities) and the private sector (cloud, edge, colocation providers, clean energy advocates, and investment entities) to set more aggressive targets. There is a clear need for green policy with green incentives as a focus.”

Demand for Change As we enter 2021 - a year when the global data centre market is expected to grow by 14% year-on-year - the demand for digital infrastructure is also being met with increased demand for sustainable practice, not just from regulatory and environmental advocacy sources, but from customers themselves.

“The green story of our data centers is becoming much more important for our customers,” comments Jaime Leverton, Chief Commercial Officer at eStruxture Data Centres. Last year, the global market for green data centres was valued at $53.19bn.

By 2026, Mordor Intelligence (who assured us they were not part of a spy ring for the dark lord Sauron) predicts that the industry will grow to more than $181.9bn. As the decade continues, it is not only the duty of all data centre and cloud operators to

pursue radical solutions to the industry’s environmental impact, it makes financial sense as well.

Upon the announcement of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, Apostolos Kakkos, Chairman of the European Data Centre Association, made it clear that, "Data centres are the supporting pillars of the fourth industrial revolution and, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, are essential infrastructure of not only the digital economy but of the entire global economy. It is our duty to commit to a selfregulatory initiative that will help to ensure the operational availability, sustainability and the future of our industry." datacentremagazine.com

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LANDMARK DIVIDEND

INVESTING IN OUR

DIGITAL FUTURE Landmark Dividend helps to develop investment, ownership and operating structures in cloud, colocation and critical infrastructure WRITTEN BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE PRODUCED BY: CAITLYN COLE

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he Digital Infrastructure team at Landmark Dividend collectively boasts decades of experience developing, owning and running data centers – working for the likes of Equinix and Digital Realty.

Leading that team is Christof Hammerli, the former Director of Corporate Development for Equinix (the world’s largest IBX data center and colocation provider).

“We might have competitors that, on paper at least, are bigger than us or have more capital available, but what differentiates us at Landmark is that we have a deep understanding of the industry from an operational perspective and can walk the walk and talk the talk with data center owners,” says Hammerli. “We’re not simply investment analysts, we speak their language. And it’s a specific technical language once you're on site. On the surface, it might be a real estate investment that you're making, but it’s a very specialized investment. I think our experience gives people on the other side of the transaction a lot of comfort that the group that's buying

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

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LANDMARK DIVIDEND

Christof Hammerli: Landmark Dividend

their data center actually knows what they're talking about and understands why this asset is mission-critical, and why it needs to be up and operational at all times. It makes a big difference and makes us a better buyer.”

Agility & Expertise Landmark has the expertise and agility to handle transactions from a million to hundreds of millions of dollars (a recent 18-month period saw the acquisition of 16 data centers) and has a broad appetite across the spectrum from a risk perspective.

“We acquire stabilized, core-type assets where there's a single tenant in place with a 10 to 15-year lease and very few moving parts,” offers Hammerli. “We also work with assets subject to very short leases, with tenants moving out or partial leasebacks in place, where we have a portion of a building that needs to be leased. In some cases, we take over operations with our partner, or provide a comprehensive service level 54

April 2021

agreement and actually take over ownership, to make sure that the equipment and infrastructure will deliver on expectations and provide the guaranteed uptime for the tenants to execute their businesses.”

Hammerli believes Landmark’s flexibility makes the company a true partner. During the three years since he arrived at Landmark and put the Digital Infrastructure team together, more than 30 transactions have been closed with brokers, bankers, engineers, large operators and enterprises. “They know who we are, that we know the space and that we do what we say we’re going to do.

When we agree to terms, they come back the exact same way from our attorneys and we don't take somebody to the closing table and re-trade at the last minute. That sets us apart from the competition much more so than us paying the highest price or having the cheapest capital.”

Landmark Dividend is a partner for the longterm with many long-standing

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

relationships with tenants over a decade or more. “In many cases we’ve known the CEO, CFO and CTO since a company’s inception and can offer the right advice and support for the challenging times we’ve experienced over the past year during the global pandemic,” says Hammerli. “Whether that’s looking at extending payment terms to navigate the step change of a COVID-19 world or improving sites. We don't buy an asset and let it sit there and merely collect the rent. We work actively with our tenants and partners to provide additional dollars to regenerate and expand sites to continue adding value to make sure these assets remain viable and keep up with the times. For example, you can increase power density or cooling. This approach positions Landmark well for success going forward, with continued growth expected in the U.S. and Canada, and international expansion, particularly in Europe.

Rising to the Challenge in a COVID-19 World Landmark saw its business double year-overyear in 2020 with industry growth accelerating

TITLE: HEAD OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE COMPANY: LANDMARK DIVIDEND INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY

EXECUTIVE BIO

European Expansion When COVID restrictions relax, Hammerli expects to hit the trail to Europe to push Landmark’s global expansion plans. “I grew up in Switzerland and worked in Europe as an equity analyst earlier in my career and later as Director of Corporate Development with Equinix, so I know the market well and have relationships with a number of the major operators,” he says. “It’s a natural move for the company to expand the portfolio and would be beneficial, not only for us, but also for many of our tenants and partners that have a global presence in Europe and the U.S. and need to provide a service across borders. We plan to set up a small team in Europe and actively source opportunities in the coming months.”

CHRISTOF HAMMERLI

Christof leads the Digital Infrastructure division at Landmark and has over 20 years of experience in various finance, risk management and corporate development roles. He is responsible for sourcing, negotiating and closing acquisitions with continued responsibility for asset and property management. Prior to joining Landmark, Christof was Chief Acquisitions Officer of Carter Validus. At CV he was instrumental in leading the development, acquisition, strategy and execution of two of the firm’s CV Mission-Critical REIT (Real Estate Investment Trusts) Data Center platforms. He was responsible for sourcing, negotiating, structuring and closing acquisitions, as well as strategic and operational leadership. Previously, Christof was Director of Corporate Development for Equinix, the world’s largest IBX data center and colocation provider, and the world’s largest public data center REIT (as measured by enterprise value), from 2007 through 2011, and before that worked for MetLife from 2004 to 2007, and Credit Suisse and Ernst & Young.

BCLP: MULTI-DISCIPLINARY DATA CENTER EXPERIENCE

JAMES GRICE @ BCLP LAW

MEETING THE LEGAL NEEDS OF THE DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE ECOSYSTEM ON A GLOBAL SCALE FROM M&A ASSET TRANSACTIONS TO ENERGY PLANNING The Data Center & Digital Infrastructure Team at international law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner draws from a deep well of knowledge and experience to help clients address all aspects of mission critical development, including tax incentives, construction, acquisition and sales, financing arrangements, operations, leasing, subleasing and co-location along with environmental permitting, power purchases, power procurement strategies and agreements, user agreements, SLAs and maintenance agreements.

ADDING VALUE “We’ve structured our service offering to provide a comprehensive perspective on all the disciplines that are relevant to both the digital infrastructure investor and the developer, owner and operator,” explains BCLP Partner James Grice. “We’re a force multiplier for companies like Landmark Dividend seeking to scale as needed on their projects with everything from a compressed timeline on diligence to transactional real estate documentation for a build-to-suit.”

GLOBAL SCALE As a global law firm, BCLP can draw on a team of 1,400 professionals with one of the largest real estate teams in the world, allowing it to deploy resources when and where necessary. The ability to scale smartly sets the firm apart and leaves it well placed to meet the growing demand for digital services and the infrastructure required to support them.

“The overall data center ecosystem is on the path to double digit annual growth in the foreseeable future,” forecasts Grice. “BCLP is in tune with the totality of that ecosystem and the infrastructure layer driving the internet, e-commerce and the digital economy.

For example, the hyperscale market is forecast to grow by at least 25% annually over the next five years with many new investors trying to penetrate the space. We have the experience and skill to support the virtual layer with data security and software, while also focusing on the infrastructure layer needed to drive that digital growth. We’re going to see more division and subsets develop within the asset class. Whatever shape that takes, we’re well placed to navigate the marketplace.” bclplaw.com

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

“ We have a deep understanding of the industry from an operational perspective and can walk the walk and talk the talk with data center owners.”

CHRISTOF HAMMERLI HEAD OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, LANDMARK DIVIDEND

due to the work from home/work from anywhere requirements. The need for greater connectivity affected all aspects of the digital world including a multitude of environments that need connectivity from hyperscale services or in the cloud and at the edge.

Hammerli notes that closing transactions which require on-site appraisals has proved difficult, but business is booming.

“Everything initially took longer than usual, but the team did an amazing job figuring out that puzzle and putting it back together, and we have actually closed a record number of transactions. Raising additional capital has been impacted by the COVID restrictions.

While there is record interest from capital sources in the space, it's difficult to close a fund with new investors if they can't travel to see you or tour your sites.”

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Building a Business with Trusted Partners Mission-critical infrastructure investments require not only the expertise to drive frictionless connectivity across borders but also the boots on the ground to deliver vital support services. Landmark works with a trio of key partners: The company has in-house counsel but also teamed up with BCLP when the Digital Infrastructure division was launched, and they needed a legal partner to get to market quickly. Experts in negotiating data center leases, BCLP has a team dedicated to digital infrastructure and experience working with Fortune 50 companies and large enterprises.

“BCLP has the bandwidth to handle the volume of transactions we're processing, with multiple deals in parallel, and negotiate contracts and service-level agreements (“SLAs”) with large operators.

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

MARKING THE TRENDS

DID YOU KNOW...

“5G capabilities will bring new technologies that you and I don't even know that we need to have today,” reasons Hammerli. “And if we talked again in five years, we would say, ‘How did we ever do without it?’ These new technologies will need not only the 5G connectivity, but also the data centers behind it to handle, manipulate and store the data. I believe that this will drive the rise of edge computing, which in turn will drive data center growth overall.”

Hammerli believes there’s more need for data center space at the edge… “There are two separate trends going on at the same time. One is clearly the edge and building comparatively small data centers in many locations, in every city. Yet, at the same time, we're seeing the opposite trend, where hyperscalers are building massively large, highly efficient data centers that are not only driving down the cost of compute, but also driving the efficiency of the data centers themselves, and making them

greener. So, fewer data centers, but much, much larger in size. Those are the data centers located on a campus that may offer 100 megawatts of power, for example, versus an edge data center, which may offer less than a megawatt, in terms of power only.”

Hammerli also expects the colocation space to grow in between. “All of these different pieces need to be connected together, from the low latency that needs to be right where the end user is located, to the assistance in things like self-driving cars, all the way to the data that's on the largest scale that needs to be manipulated,” he notes. “Overall, I expect the space to grow.

Over the last four years a massive amount of capital has expressed interest in investing in this space. Four years ago, investing in data centers was considered an alternative asset class. Today, we're starting to work our way out of that definition and more into a core food group where the largest investors all now have an allocation.”

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LANDMARK DIVIDEND

Our Experience Delivers Results.

DH Capital is a private investment banking partnership combining deep industry expertise in digital infrastructure, telecommunications and SaaS having completed over 60 deals in the past 5 years aggregating over $18 billion in transaction value.

LEARN MORE 60

April 2021

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

“Four years ago, investing in data centers was considered an alternative asset class. Now it’s becoming a core food group for larger investors.”

CHRISTOF HAMMERLI

Their expertise gives us the confidence that they know the difference between real and perceived risks. They’re deal-makers,” says Hammerli. “It’s our plan to grow internationally, so BCLP is a true partner that has the experience to represent us on that stage. They’ve also made introductions and opened doors for us.”

DH Capital is a leading advisor to the data center and managed hosting sectors – having completed over 185 transactions totaling more than $30 billion. “They’re a niche investment banking firm within the digital infrastructure space,” explains Hammerli. “They’re one of the most important players – certainly the best connected with everyone from bankers

HEAD OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, LANDMARK DIVIDEND

to operators to private equity groups. They’re very nimble at what they do and have been working with Landmark for the best part of the last ten years. They're incredibly creative partners and knowledgeable of the space.

They provide great research for us and we work with them on a number of fronts. Mostly deal-based and transaction-based, where we engage with them in helping us complete a deal or where they represent a seller on the other side, and then work with us to finalize the transaction.”

BCS is a Dallas-based end-to-end facility management solutions provider. “They’re datacentremagazine.com

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LANDMARK DIVIDEND

“ BCLP has the bandwidth to handle the volume of transactions we're processing, with multiple deals in parallel, and negotiate contracts and SLAs with large operators.”

CHRISTOF HAMMERLI HEAD OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, LANDMARK DIVIDEND

probably the most important factor for our tenants,” explains Hammerli. “They offer a complete turnkey solution where they provide anything from janitorial to security services, all the way through to infrastructure management and preventive maintenance. As landlords, we're not staffed or qualified to do this sort of work ourselves. Our customers and tenants interact with their teams on a daily basis so it’s an important relationship for us and a key extension of our service offering. They’re a true side-by-side partner and involved with us from the beginning on transactions as we look to negotiate SLAs. They have experience 62

April 2021

providing a range of services for systemically important data organizations that keep the country running, with every certification that could be required. They are trusted with the most important data in the world and are incredibly important to Landmark.”

2021 Landmark is planning to expand its portfolio in 2021, with a focus on larger acquisitions.

“We want to build on our success from 2020 and deliver an even better year this year,” maintains Hammerli. “From a total acquisitions perspective, we're looking

LANDMARK DIVIDEND

to grow that number again with portfolio acquisitions that include multiple data centers in one package. Traditionally, we focused almost exclusively on individual asset acquisitions where every transaction we closed was one building and one data center. With the help of our capital partners, we plan to pursue existing portfolios with as many as 15 assets in one acquisition.”

Hammerli reveals that there will also be greater emphasis on buildto-suit hyperscale projects. “We’ll focus our efforts this year on brand-

new development opportunities with large enterprises, typically hyperscale providers, that are looking for new buildings, a new shell in a particular market, and we provide the capital – from acquisition of land to construction and all the way to take-out.”

With the team Hammerli has put in place, and the bench depth of key partners at Landmark’s disposal, you should not bet against them in doubling down again this year.

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NETWORKING

AT THE RUGGED EDGE OF INNOVATION 64

April 2021

NETWORKING

Marc Garner, VP of Schneider Electric’s Secure Power Division, talks ruggedized micro data centres and the role they have to play at the network’s edge WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

T

he ways in which data is generated, and the role that it plays, are changing. As artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and the rapidly-expanding internet of things (IoT) unlock new applications, they also place greater demand on the digital infrastructure that supports them to manage exponentially larger datasets with lower latency than ever before.

Advancements like self-driving cars, fleets of drones, and autonomous industrial robots will need to be in constant, seamless, nearinstantaneous contact with the networks that allow them to function effectively and safely. To support these kinds of applications, computing and data storage is increasingly being moved from the network’s core (think: AWS hyperscale facility with more than 50MW of capacity) to the edge (think: well, we’ll get to that in a moment).

While the data centre industry is undeniably marching with speed and purpose towards an era of massive, hyperscale campuses, these huge centralised facilities simply can’t handle the enormous groundswell in demand for ultra low latency, ultra localised data centre infrastructure that supports the growing need for data centre infrastructure at the edge.

A centralised hyperscale data centre used to host public cloud services, for example, is a hermetically sealed, perfectly controlled environment. Data centre operators control datacentremagazine.com

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NETWORKING

Marc Garner Bio

the cores of their network and can ensure that factors like temperature and humidity are carefully managed. Likewise, large data centres have sizable backup generators, multiple points of redundancy connecting them to the grid, and usually an impressive layer of physical security.

By contrast, the edge of a network can, theoretically, be anywhere – a building site, a hilltop in Kazakhstan, even a satellite in low Earth orbit. How on (or off) Earth do you run a data centre in such an environment?

Simple. You ruggedize it.

“Ruggedized micro data centres are designed and built to protect the users

Marc Garner is the Vice President of Schneider Electric’s Secure Power Division in the UK and Ireland. In his role, Marc is responsible for leading a team of expert power professionals to support customers in data centres, server rooms, edge computing and mission-critical environments.

Marc is a 15-year veteran of Schneider Electric having joined the company’s graduate training program after graduating from the University of Sunderland with an Honours Degree in Business Administration.

Marc has enjoyed a successful career at Schneider Electric in sales, marketing and leadership roles; achieving double digit year-on-year growth in his first position as a regional sales engineer and maintaining that level of performance to build a strong track record as National Sales Manager for the company’s Cable Management business and as National Sales Director for the Low Voltage business.

Marc is passionate about sustainability, people development and a customerfirst approach to service. As lead of the UK’s Secure Power Division, he strongly believes in empowering and developing diverse teams to offer a breadth of skills, support and expertise to customers and partners. datacentremagazine.com

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NETWORKING

Micro Data Centers for IT / OT Convergence Schneider Electric

mission-critical infrastructure, both within harsh indoor and outdoor environments,” explains Marc Garner, VP of Schneider Electric’s Secure Power Division in the UK. Garner oversees Schneider’s industryleading line of ruggedized micro mobile data centres, the EcoStruxure Micro Data Center R-Series. The line was launched in late 2020 and is already solving problems from the high street to high-risk warzones. “With digital transformation demands accelerating at a rapid pace, the types and designs of micro data centres are also quickly evolving,” Garner adds.

The diverse array of environments that a micro edge data centre can face present some interesting design challenges, including the need for standardisation and integration, a higher degree of physical security and resiliency, critical space savings, and remote management, servicing and maintenance.

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“Our micro data centre at the Sagrada Família enables site operators to manage the church’s security and effectively control the millions of visitors that come to visit each year” MARC GARNER,

VP, SECURE POWER DIVISION, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC UK

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NETWORKING

Schneider Electric: Ruggedizing the Edge The number of applications for micro mobile data centres capable of operating anywhere at any time are only on the rise. Garner explains just a few of the avenues that Schneider Electric is pursuing.

Retail “For organisations working within the retail sector, Schneider Electric has developed a firstof-its-kind EcoStruxure Micro Data Centre in a 6U wall mount model, designed to support large edge servers in a low-profile cabinet that maximises floor space. Shipped fully integrated and ready to deploy, this certified and preintegrated solution provides users with a complete IT solution within a secure enclosure, increases uptime and protection for businesscritical retail applications.”

HPC “To support high performance computing (HPC) applications at the edge, we’ve also developed the industry’s first liquidcooled micro data centre in partnership with Iceotope and Avnet. Sealed at the chassis level and including Lenovo servers, the new solution enables GPU-intensive artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and HPC workloads to be deployed in close proximity to the location of data generation and use, regardless of how harsh the environment is.”

Industrial environments “To support the convergence of IT and OT in industrial and manufacturing environments Schneider Electric has also created a range of pre-integrated industrial edge reference designs, co-developed with AVEVA,

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Lenovo and Stratus. A great example of the benefits of micro data centres in industrial environments is Schneider Electric’s 5G-test site at its Le Vaudreuil factory in France.

“Here we are piloting a digital transformation solution with Orange and the trials use our EcoStruxure Micro Data Centre solutions to support two use cases: augmented reality (AR) for maintenance activities and the implementation of a telepresence robot for remote visits.”

Customised outdoor environments “Finally, for ruggedized outdoor environments, a great example of our micro data centre solutions is at the world-famous Sagrada Família, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The custom and pre-integrated micro data centre enables site operators to manage the church’s security and effectively control the millions of visitors that come to visit each year.

Furthermore, due to the on-going construction at the basilica, the micro data centre was designed for durability and security, with electrical, IT and mechanical infrastructure that can be disconnected and moved when necessary, ensuring that construction and tourist visits can continue, uninterrupted.”

“ Ruggedized micro data centres are designed and built to protect the users mission-critical infrastructure, both within harsh indoor and outdoor environments” MARC GARNER,

VP, SECURE POWER DIVISION, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC UK

“Deploying mission critical IT equipment in extreme environments where servers, storage and networking have never previously existed can be extremely challenging,” Garner explains. Dust, harsh temperatures and a lack of onsite technical expertise all conspire to mean that the facilities need to be as modular and insulated from the outside world as possible, meaning that physical security – delivered using cameras that monitor the local environment, shock packaging and

sealed off rack units – and uninterrupted remote monitoring are both high priorities.

“Many organisations using micro data centres will find it’s physically impossible to have skilled service personnel permanently on site at every location, which means having the ability to utilize a remote monitoring solution, and gain data driven insights from anywhere, at any time is essential,” says Garner.

“Applications at the network edge are business and mission-critical, therefore downtime can have major implications for loss of data and revenue. To ensure uptime, edge computing systems are standardised, pre-configured and pretested prior to deployment, offering predictable and consistent performance, which is crucial if the user is deploying IT across multiple distributed locations.” datacentremagazine.com

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SCALA DATA CENTERS

SCALA DATA CENTERS THINK BIG TO ENABLE A CONNECTED FUTURE IN LATIN AMERICA WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

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PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

SCALA DATA CENTERS

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Scala Data Centers is driving the next generation of a sustainable hyperscale data centers across LATAM

S

Marcos Peigo, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

cala Data Centers is thinking big when it comes to enabling the next generation of mobile and internet connectivity throughout Latin America.

From Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south – a distance of more than 4,900 miles – Scala is building a series of huge campuses to underpin the region’s datadriven transformation within a time frame of only five years.

It is already the first hyper-scalable data centre company in LATAM to focus on its green credentials plus the expertise and global size of Digital Colony which has more than US $40 billion in assets under management and a powerful investment platform.

“We are investing in the long-term,” said Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Marcos Peigo of Scala Data Centers, a successful entrepreneur with 20 years of industry experience, who was speaking from his house close to São Paulo, Brazil.

“We are investing in huge campuses where customers can grow over the next 10-15 years in line with demand for computing power. We are finding places where we can apply 100 per cent renewable power, and we are developing all of these under templates of engineering and operations that are world class,” said Peigo.

“We are just starting our cycle of investment, but instead of developing datacentremagazine.com

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SCALA DATA CENTERS

A DATA CENTRE MASTERPLAN In order to accelerate their platform for expansion the company is using the One Scala Template for all the campuses which can be customised in response to customer demand.

DID YOU KNOW...

The benefits include: • Win scale • Reduce delivery time • Keep construction costs down while maintaining highest possible quality • Ready-made design packages • Easier training of facility operations staff • Technicians can be shared between facilities and hit the ground running

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“The idea is that if you close your eyes and open them in a data centre in Brazil will be exactly the same as one in Mexico,” said Scala Data Centers Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Marcos Peigo.

“We are using the same architecture, equipment, design and features as a standard and will provide adjustments to the requirements of each customer,” he said.

April 2021

in lots of smaller data centers that are spread over the country we are developing big campuses,” commented Peigo who pointed out a standard campus for Scala will comprise of one to four buildings with a 20 megawatt critical capacity each, supporting high density (higher than 30kW per rack) deployments.

In 2017 Colony Capital acquired Digital Bridge Holdings and built a multi-milliondollar reserve for greenfield projects (starting from scratch) and inorganic growth in three areas: data centers, towers and fibres.

Scala Data Centers was officially formed in 2020 with the acquisition of the colocation assets of the Brazilian company UOLDiveo

by Digital Colony for US $429 million and is now leveraging on these three pillars to accelerate growth as the data centre platform for Latin America.

The company's data centre business model is based on hyperscale and colocation projects, building data infrastructure from the ground up to provide space, power supply and highspeed connections to accommodate servers and storage from major global cloud service providers.

“WE ARE BUILDING A VERY AGGRESSIVE AND BOLD PLAN OF EXPANSION” MARCOS PEIGO

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, SCALA DATA CENTERS

SCALA DATA CENTERS

Scala Data Centers: The nervous system of the data centre

Focus on renewable energy With the acquisition, Scala took over two data centres: São Paulo One (known as SP1), with approximately 30 MW of total capacity, and SP2, with a capacity of 7 MW. Scala is now expanding its presence with the construction of five data centres in the region: one in Mexico, one in Colombia, one in Chile and two more in Brazil. All work is expected to begin later this year.

In Brazil, SP3 is expected to start operating in June, which should increase the total production capacity in Brazil to 50 MW this year. According to Peigo, it is the first data centre in Brazil with Tier III certification issued by TIA 942, which observes not only electrical but also mechanical aspects, including telecommunications and physical security.

Yet in 2020, Scala has migrated 100 per cent of its energy consumption from its data centres to renewable and certified sources of energy – the first data centre company in

2020 Year founded

200

Numebr of employees

Latin America to achieve this milestone and now is developing the next step of its ESG program, to become completely carbon neutral by the end of this year.

Commenting on Scala’s green focus Peigo said the campuses will be awarded with the LEED and CEEDA certification in energy and environmental design. “We are making the right decision at the beginning to be green.

I believe this is the least we can do. As we establish this is the new standard in the industry for Latin America we hope others will follow our lead in the next years, datacentremagazine.com

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SCALA DATA CENTERS

“WE ARE MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE BEGINNING TO BE GREEN. I BELIEVE THIS IS THE LEAST WE CAN DO AND AS WE ESTABLISH THE NEW STANDARD IN THE INDUSTRY FOR LATIN AMERICA WE HOPE OTHERS WILL FOLLOW IN THE BEST INTEREST OF FUTURE GENERATIONS”

MARCOS PEIGO TITLE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SERVICES LOCATION: BRAZIL Marcos Peigo, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Scala Data Centers is working to achieve world-class connectivity across Latin America.

Peigo, who is also an Operating Partner with global investment company Digital Colony, is leading Scala’s data centre business model which will offer mobile and internet connectivity to people from Mexico to Chile.

Peigo is based in São Paulo, Brazil, and provides critical insight into the Latin American data center and IT markets. He is a seasoned leader with more than 20 years of experience working with technology and infrastructurefocused firms in Brazil.

MARCOS PEIGO

as it is in the best interest of present and future generations.”

Scala has also developed an EHS policy which is key for the data center business.

“This is a priority at Scala. We are 100 per cent committed to the environment, health and safety of our employees, service providers, customers and visitors in all Scala facilities. We have built a dedicated team led by a senior leadership to conduct regular checks in our facilities and operations.” commented Peigo.

Scala currently has 17 deals between land purchases, greenfield investments and possible acquisitions in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. “We are developing very aggressively and at a bold pace,” said Peigo.

EXECUTIVE BIO

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, SCALA DATA CENTERS

SCALA DATA CENTERS

According to Peigo, Scala has a high quality, growing customer base including a global hyperscale provider and a leading IT platform in Brazil. It is now poised to capture market share in under-served geographies of Brazil and the rest of Latin America.

The power behind Scala is their global investor, Digital Colony, which has 125 data centers and 135,000 route miles of fibre assets. “Digital Colony is the leading investment firm in the infrastructure landscape in the world with more than 40 billion in assets,” said Peigo.

“WE ARE INVESTING IN HUGE CAMPUSES WHERE CUSTOMERS CAN GROW OVER THE NEXT 10-15 YEARS IN LINE WITH DEMAND FOR COMPUTING POWER. WE ARE FINDING PLACES WHERE WE CAN APPLY 100 PER CENT RENEWABLE POWER, AND WE ARE DEVELOPING ALL OF THESE UNDER TEMPLATES OF ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS THAT ARE WORLD CLASS”

Three pillars of growth In a bid to accelerate growth during the next six years Digital Colony is focusing on three pillars; data centres, towers and fibre. “We believe the three pillars are the foundation of the new economy and the formation of the progress and the growth in the world,” commented Peigo.

The tower segment of the business includes small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS) while fibre makes up the third pillar of the digital infrastructure strategy which will interconnect its towers and data centres and serve industries that seek to automate and digitise.

Digital Colony has three major investments in the region in this segment: Mexico Tower Partners (MTP), the largest private wireless tower operator in Mexico; Andean Telecom Partners (ATP), which operates fibre and towers in Chile, Peru and Colombia; and Highline do Brasil, focusing on the Brazilian tower business.

“That increases the size of the company by four times in LATAM. We control and operate more than 6,500 towers in this landscape and globally more than 350,000 towers,” said Peigo.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, SCALA DATA CENTERS

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MARCOS PEIGO

SCALA DATA CENTERS

250MW

capacity to be developed in the next 5 years

5

Scala Data Centers campuses covering Latin America: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina

100%

energy consumption comes from renewable sources of energy

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LZA ENGENHARIA, DESIGNING SOLUTIONS. LZA Engenharia is a leading mission critical company, focused on comprehensive engineering services to the largest datacenter operators in Brazil and Latin America.

Our professionals have more than 25 years in the market, delivering excellence in design, strategic planning and assessments to our clients.

LEARN MORE

SCALA DATA CENTERS

Hyperscale data centres Scala’s agile strategy means they will be developing initiatives where they will also deploy edge modular tier III data centres, closer to the demand for 5G rollout, Internet of Things (IoT) – which is all part of the evolution of their portfolio.

“We are building a very aggressive and bold plan of expansion,” said Peigo.

“For our campus in Tamboré, São Paulo we have plans under development for a total of six data centers, one already in production and the second under construction, taking advantage of the acquisition we concluded in last December of 45 per cent of the interest in the entire industrial park plus

DID YOU KNOW...

POWER BEHIND SCALA DATA CENTERS The power behind Scala Data Centers is Digital Colony – their operating partner which already has global assets of: Tower assets with 350,000 sites providing wireless network coverage and capability.

Small cell assets with 35,000 nodes – enabling additional wireless network densification in high demand areas.

Fibre assets with 135,000 route miles fueling global innovation and providing mission critical connectivity.

Enterprise and hyperscale data centres with 125 data centres – playing a pivotal role in the creation, computation, storage and management of information.

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100 per cent of the substation and the telecommunications infrastructure. A total capacity between 90 and 120MW makes this the biggest data centre campus in the country and in the region.

“We are acquiring two other campuses close to São Paulo to form a triangle offering availability zones in São Paulo State to our customers.

“We worked hard during 2020 to select very carefully where the demand will be in the next five to 10 years, according to our customers indications and market movements. And in that areas, we built a

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strong landbank to support the development of these large campuses with technology that is really up-to-date,” commented Peigo.

One example of this is SP3, scheduled to deliver on June 1 2021, which will deliver from 17 to 30 kilowatts in an innovative design with ion-lithium batteries and no ups – above the average of all other data centres in the country,” said Peigo.

Cloud and 5G rollout Demands from the consumer for moving data to the cloud and 5G will not only be improved in the future from core data centres

SCALA DATA CENTERS

“WE WORKED HARD DURING 2020 TO SELECT VERY CAREFULLY WHERE THE DEMAND WILL BE IN THE NEXT FIVE TO 10 YEARS, ACCORDING TO OUR CUSTOMERS INDICATIONS AND MARKET MOVEMENTS. AND IN THAT AREAS, WE BUILT A STRONG LANDBANK TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THESE LARGE CAMPUSES WITH TECHNOLOGY THAT IS REALLY UP-TO-DATE” MARCOS PEIGO

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, SCALA DATA CENTERS

LEADERSHIP QUOTE “I can navigate from finance to innovation, from architecture to engineering and this is really what drives me as a leader. I want to understand what my people are doing, what people might need and how I can support them to make better decisions.”

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INVESTING IN PEOPLE

DID YOU KNOW...

but also from the edge data centres across LATAM. “We will enable the development of new applications and new systems that will leverage the high density and low latency that goes in benefit of the customer,” said Peigo.

“We will naturally enable cloud providers to deploy their capacity in LATAM, which will increase the density of our connectivity, once this is directly related to the quantity and quality of the customers that are hosted into them. The ecosystem is built around the major cloud providers “We are creating the right conditions for cloud companies and hyperscalers to scale, so they can look at the region and find a global standard of data centres deployed, with a reasonable price delivered by a

The right people, in the right place, at the right time, is how Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Marcos Peigo of Scala Data Centers describes his team.

“Who makes a company? It's not the money, it's the people, it's the team.

We are blessed at Scala Data Centers. I believe I have the right team and the right set of customers,” he said.

Scala is also investing in the future by offering 28 scholarships in electrical, civil and mechanical engineering for young talents with economical restrictions.

SCALA DATA CENTERS

“THE WAY WE ARE STRUCTURING THE COMPANY IS THAT WE ARE INVITING THE MARKET TO WORK WITH US ON THE SCALA ENGINEERING TEMPLATE AND THAT IS DESIGNED TO BE SUSTAINABLE” MARCOS PEIGO

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, SCALA DATA CENTERS

company, with an extensive proven track record of delivery and that is investing for the long term in the sector.

“And of course, we will leverage our sister companies’ portfolio in towers and fibre to help to spread this much faster than a single data centre company could do. For example, when we talk about IoT with the help of our sister companies we can provide a bundle of core data centre capacity, lT owner of real estate assets and fibre to offer a modular solution in the edge.

“We can connect that to the core data centres, where the capacity is located, and that can connect to our data centres anywhere in the globe, wherever these cloud companies are located – everything goes into our portfolio of digital assets. So this is

a massive competitive advantage we have when we leverage all types of assets we invest,” he said.

Scala is working along with their ecosystem partners LZA, Engie and Schneider. “The way we are structuring the company is that we are inviting the market to work with us on the Scala engineering template and that is designed to be sustainable.

“We are working with Schneider to develop SP3 which is the data centre we are delivering this semester. We are partnering with LZA to help us design the data centres templates that we are applying to our international expansion.

“It’s really about creating an ecosystem where they can invest in us because they see we are growing and will keep developing. We have the confidence that we can bring these world-class partners to work with us for the long-term,” he said.

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TECHNOLOGY

AI AND IoT IN THE AGE OF

DATA GRAVITY Working together, artificial intelligence and the internet of things are unlocking the potential of the zettabyte era.

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

“C

onsider data as if it were a planet or other object with sufficient mass.” The term Data Gravity was coined back in 2010 in a blog post by Dave McCrory. Back then, McCrory worked as the VP of engineering at GE Digital. Today, he works as the VP of growth and global head of insights and analytics at Digital Realty thanks, largely I imagine, to that blog post.

In the past couple of years, data gravity has become one of the most high-profile trends in the data centre and cloud industries, driven largely by Digital Realty’s own spirited push to get people to pay attention to the phenomenon. The concept, McCrory wrote in 2010, compares the impact of increasingly large data sets to objects with a physical mass. “As data accumulates (builds mass) there is a greater likelihood that additional

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TECHNOLOGY

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TECHNOLOGY

18 zettabytes Global Data Volume 2016.

74 zettabytes Global Data Volume 2021.

79 zettabytes Data produced by IoT devices in 2025.

How much is 1 Zettabyte?

“ As data accumulates, there is a greater likelihood that additional services and applications will be attracted to this data” DAVE MCCRORY

VP OF GROWTH, GLOBAL HEAD OF INSIGHTS AND ANALYTICS, DIGITAL REALTY

services and applications will be attracted to this data. This is the same effect gravity has on objects around a planet. As the mass or density increases, so does the strength of gravitational pull.”

More than a decade later, the digital economy is feeling that pull more than ever. With the advent of the internet of things (IoT), the way data moves in the digital age is changing radically. By 2025, connected devices alone will generate an estimated 79 zettabytes of information. If

• 1trn Gigabytes • 40bn Blu Ray copies of Blade Runner: The FInal Cut • The whole internet circa 2013 • 10.1mn years spent downloading

you take into consideration the fact that, in 2016, the entire volume of all data on earth amounted to just 18 zettabytes - or about 720bn Blu Ray copies of Blade Runner: the Final Cut - it all starts to get a little mind boggling.

The source of this monumental growth in data creation is largely thanks to the IoT. In the pre-IoT era, the majority of data was created by people - think emails, social media posts, and high-resolution jpegs of Jeff Goldblum lying on that table in Jurassic Park. In an age where there were an estimated 11.7bn connected devices active in the world at the end of 2020 - a figure which is expected to almost triple in the next decade - people are no longer the ones making all the data. datacentremagazine.com

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TECHNOLOGY

Title of the video

In the Grip of Data Gravity All this data - being generated by smart water meters, smart doorbells, even smart screwdrivers - is collected as part of massive data sets which, as McCrory noted over a decade ago, are very hard to move around. Data centres are seeing demand rise to unprecedented levels as a result, which is driving the increased adoption of public cloud, spectacular growth across the hyperscale industry, and the expansion of edge networks in order to create the necessary tools to capitalise on the vast amounts of information being generated.

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AI will be essential in transforming huge modern data sets into useful insights, as well as parsing which data to keep and, perhaps most importantly, where it should be kept. If enterprises can achieve a synergistic relationship between their data and their AI applications, the possibilities are virtually endless. However, finding the right strategy to apply and execute using AI is not always a clear cut issue.

Where the AI lives “All AI starts with data, and analysing it requires a lot of accelerated computing. Most

TECHNOLOGY

“Luckily, running AI workloads creates telemetry data that could be used to automate decision making and boost efficiency” CHARLIE BOYLE VP, GM DGX SYSTEMS, NVIDIA

companies adopting AI tend to take a mixed approach,” says Charlie Boyle, VP and GM of DGX Systems at NVIDIA, adding that the growth of IoT is driving adoption of this mixed approach, in which decision-makers use the “public cloud, like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, and private clouds in on-premises servers to deliver applications with lower latency, in industry parlance, to customers and partners while maintaining security by limiting the amount of sensitive data shared across networks.”

Boyle explains that, as customers increasingly adopt AI, they’re beginning to

look at not just how to run their workloads, but also how to optimise and automate them. Finding the right place in which to run an AI workload - whether it’s deep learning model-training, or inference, which applies the trained model to an application - is a key problem to solve in order to increase efficiency. “Luckily,” says Boyle, “running AI workloads creates telemetry data that could be used to automate decision making and boost efficiency.”

This telemetry data can then be used to monitor efficiency, data location and system availability. Combining it with datacentremagazine.com

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TECHNOLOGY

Defying (Data) Gravity: The Next Phase

historical data can allow enterprises to predict future performance outcomes in order to understand the best place to run their AI workloads. “For example, if a model predicted that a massive workload will take two weeks to run on one platform, but could be completed in 48 hours using another, that information could help a data science team communicate the resources they need for a project to be successful, while also making sure they meet their deadlines,” he continues. “Without these predictions, teams are stuck making educated guesses and manual choices without real insight on the costs, time to solution, and expected outcome.”

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TECHNOLOGY

“ Most companies adopting AI tend to take a mixed approach” CHARLIE BOYLE VP, GM DGX SYSTEMS, NVIDIA

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CHAYORA

The Gateway In and Out of China WRITTEN BY: WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

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Chayora’s Oliver Jones, Jonathan Berney and Tiger Zhao run through the data centre platform’s proposition, growth, and response to COVID-19

C

Chayora launched live operations in Data Centre TJ1 on its ‘ChinaScale’ Campus serving Greater Beijing on 29 October 2020.

hayora was founded 10 years ago by China Chairman Steven Cao, CEO Oliver Jones and COO Jonathan Berney in order to be able to deliver on the vision of becoming a “digital infrastructure partner” trusted by their customers in China, one of the most exciting, fastest-growing and yet most difficult markets in which to compete. They knew they had to build a business that would fulfil the aim of being world-class in all aspects. Chayora worked in partnership initially with Standard Chartered Bank as its Series B, first institutional investor and then subsequently with Actis, the UK-based private equity fund who acquired the SCB interest and then extended their investment in Chayora’s Series C round in China. With this backing, the Chayora Founders set out to build each aspect of the business to ensure that each element of its Digital Infrastructure: the Data Centre Campus; the corporate structure; the design; the construction standards; the data centre operations and security; the government support, grants and tax incentives; the network connectivity; the power availability; and of course the world-class leadership team were carefully assembled to deliver.

The first phase of Data Centre Tianjin 1 (TJ1), the first of 9 planned Data Centres on Chayora’s 160MW IT load Tianjin Campus (serving Beijing and

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CHAYORA

“ Within five years, China will have greater data center capacity than any other market in the world” OLIVER JONES CEO, CHAYORA

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the surrounding area with a population of more than 152 million people) was completed and commenced operations in October 2020. The first customer moved in during December 2020 and now with evident building demand and a pipeline growing as this ambition has become a reality, both for the Chayora Founders and for their customers. The expansion of this first facility to full design capacity and the planning for TJ2 as the second major Data Centre on site are already underway and a new hyperscale Campus serving Shanghai will commence this year as well.

CHAYORA

OLIVER JONES TITLE: CEO

9

Data Centres on Chayora’s 160MW IT load Tianjin Campus was completed and commenced operations in

October 2020

It will serve Beijing and the surrounding area with a population of more than

152 million

EXECUTIVE BIO

The first phase of Data Centre Tianjin 1 (TJ1), the first of

Oliver Jones is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Chayora.

Oliver originally qualified as a chartered surveyor after graduating from Kingston in 1983 and after completing his MBA at London Business School in the late 1980s, specialised in corporate finance and the fast-growing management areas of property and business services outsourcing.

Oliver specifically focuses on complex outsourcing transactions and property operating related investment deals. His experience in public partnerships has its roots in the UK in the 1990s when market testing and PFI models were developed.

During this time, Oliver advised the UK Government’s Cabinet Office through his role on the UK PFI Panel Property Group and various industry professional bodies.

He has worked extensively in real estate and service operator businesses internationally and has a particular insight into the Middle East and Asia through past business interests specifically the UAE, where he was a founder director of Emrill when with Carillion; Hong Kong and China with Citex and EC Harris; and Australia with Symonds.

CHAYORA

“ Increasing private market investment in data centers is going to be critical”

JONATHAN BERNEY TITLE: COO

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JONATHAN BERNEY COO, CHAYORA

EXECUTIVE BIO

With over 25 years of international business, property development and construction experience, Jonathan before joining Chayora was Regional Managing Partner for EC Harris in Asia where he spent three years leading and successfully growing the company’s Asian business through a number of significant property and real estate deals.

Jonathan has worked in Asia for more than 20 years and has very strong relationships with the corporate occupier market, particularly in financial services, having previously led EC Harris’s global Corporate Real Estate and Critical Systems team. Prior to moving to Asia, he led a number of development and asset organisations through significant transformations in order to maximise their development and operational performance.

These included BAA, Land Securities, London and Continental Railways, Rail Procurement Agency and the Grosvenor Estate.

CHAYORA

Jonathan Berney and Oliver Jones from Chayora talk about their Data Centre Campuses in China

The ambitious plans and their execution could easily have been stalled or stopped all together by the Covid-19 pandemic, but this was merely another challenge to be overcome by the Chayora team. The mechanical and electrical fit-out of the first phase was completed in ten weeks.

This was only achieved by having built a China-based world-class leadership team and supply partners all of whom shared Chayora’s ambition and values. The “Chayora Way” as the core values of the business, are now codified and at the heart of this central management capability which has emerged from addressing and overcoming the impact of the pandemic.

Assembling a team consisting of Technical Director AC Lee; Programme Director Mark Froelich; Operations Director Tiger Zhao; and EVP of Network and Strategy Yali Liu meant that Chayora’s GM Kevin Sun had an incredible talent pool to be able to deliver, all with a common set of values. The Chayora datacentremagazine.com

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“ We have regular meetings [...] where we synchronise and talk about how the technology is evolving and how we as a facility provider can support it” TIGER ZHAO

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, CHAYORA

Way commitments of ‘DOING WHAT YOU PROMISE’ and ‘ACTING WITH PASSION’ were everything to this team. Combined with support from Vertiv, Cummins, Qian and CEFOC as primary and general contractors alongside H3C as designers, Bohan as Project Managers, and Turner and Townsend as Commercial Managers, the team were able to deliver what at first appeared an impossible task. With very active guidance from the Founders, often through Zoom from multiple locations the team delivered! What’s more, the same team has now raised its ambitions further and has a much larger and more complex programme of work ahead and due to be delivered with over US$900m of capital expenditure planned over the next 24 months leveraging an ever more experienced team and platform.

The complexities of growing a Data Centre platform in China are extensive. Whether regulatory compliance, buying land, getting government support, creating an execution and operations platform, negotiating power and network agreements, and much more all serve to make China one of the most challenging global markets. Chayora was set up to be an expert enabling and operating organisation and where others have used local partners, Chayora decided that it needed to understand and to be able to execute each and every intricate detail.

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agreements to buying land in government auctions, to securing the more than 100 permits necessary for the progress to date, merely constructing a Data Centre now seems ‘easy’ and yet ensuring that it delivers authentically to the design standards set out has meant that attention to detail from everyone has been essential: from the board directors to construction site labourers and critical facilities managers. No aspect has

CHAYORA

TIGER ZHAO

been left to chance and this has resulted in a ‘China first’ of the Chayora TJ1 becoming the first OCP Ready accredited Data Centre in the country and also the first in Northern China to receive both Uptime Tier III Design and Construction certification, all of which will be repeated in Chayora’s future plans.

The platform of the Tianjin campus has now been used to progress Chayora’s second campus, serving Shanghai.

EXECUTIVE BIO

TITLE: OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Tiger has multiple years of working experience in lead technical roles for Amazon Web Services China. Fluent in English and Mandarin, he has over 5 years’ experience managing capacity delivery and infrastructure operations at AWS datacentres, having built new data centres in Ningxia and Hong Kong as well as scaling existing data centres in Beijing, Ningxia and Hong Kong.

Tiger has a proven record working in other multinational companies including Microsoft and Cisco.

Tiger graduated in Electronic Engineering and holds qualifications in ITIL and PMP certification.

CHAYORA

Chayora’s tested Tianjin platform means that the necessary regional and provincial differences can be readily incorporated particularly with respect to land purchase, power agreements and the development of high quality communication with the provincial government. Local nuance has also been pre-emptively incorporated into the development plan and Investment Agreement.

Data Centre Operations are critical to achieving Chayora’s Vision. Keeping the Data Centre operational is only part of the story.

Tiger Zhao, Operations Director, says “My focus is on Total Cost of Operation (TCO) and the customer experience. The starting point is our class-leading design with a 106

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“ Making sure that you can add value to the customer, to the environments that are around you is hugely important” OLIVER JONES CEO, CHAYORA

PUE of 1.19, proven in testing of the actual facility, but my aim is to make that a baseline from which to improve.” Tiger says, “We use

CHAYORA

a Data Centre Information Management (DCIM) system integrated with our Building Management System (BMS) and combined with our customised programming to exactly match our design and use characteristics.

We are consequently able to manage the performance of the Data Centre with ambitious technology driven plans for further improvement.”

Customers are everything to Chayora and ensuring that all customers have a worldclass experience with the Chayora team is critical to our operational approach.

“All our customers and their teams have an experience that makes them want to come back to us, whether it is our ability to meet their scalability, scale and performance

needs or their TCO requirements, security needs or customisation.” says Tiger, “For our visitors, we also have hotel-style concierge services to make working in a Chayora Data Centre a memorable experience.

Based on the success to date the Chayora team and Jones specifically has ambitious plans for the future with further expansion and an expectation of six facilities being live within 24 months matched by an expanded customer base and significantly increased investment. The years ahead will be exciting.

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TAPE:

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Andy Walls, CTO of IBM’s Flash Systems division, discusses the role of tape in the modern data centre, and the factors that led to this unlikely success story WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

Andy Walls, CTO of IBM’s Flash Systems division

“I

t was 1990, I think. I was in the cafeteria here at IBM in San Jose the first time I heard a VP get up in front of an audience to declare that 'tape is dead'. Well, just look how that turned out,” laughs Andy Walls, the chief technology officer of IBM’s Flash Systems division.

If you asked most people what kind of role they thought reels of tape play in the modern world of public cloud storage and all-flash arrays, they probably couldn’t be blamed for guessing that the technology long ago went the same way as the rotary phone or the steam engine; replaced by newer, faster, more efficient ways of doing things. Finding a tape cartridge in a modern data centre feels like going round to your friend’s house to find a LaserDisc drive plugged into their smart TV. “The very nature of tape - being long and stringy, and therefore having read times that are measured in seconds to minutes has, I think, led people to ask things like 'how can that still be relevant in the digital age? How in the world can that be used for anything?”

Walls asks.

In spite of everything, however, tape not only survived decades of enthusiastic keynotes by the “tape is dead” brigade, continuing to find a place in data centres today, but the radically shifting digital world is actually driving more demand for tape storage than ever before. datacentremagazine.com

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CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTS

“ The thing that people miss, or perhaps don't quite understand, is the sheer rate of creation of data in the world today” ANDY WALLS

CTO, IBM FLASH SYSTEMS

Stopping “Datageddon” in the Zettabyte Age Ok, datageddon is a joke from the HBO show Silicon Valley - the ravings of an unhinged Jeff Bezos analogue - but for a joke made back in 2018, it was surprisingly prescient.

Go back in time by about 40,000 years and the aggregate data produced by all of humanity in a given week might have amounted to between four and six cave paintings of buffalo.

In 2021, the world generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day and, by 2025, we’ll be generating around 175 zettabytes (about 7trn Blu Ray copies of Blade Runner: The Final Cut) per year.

“The thing that people miss, or perhaps don't quite understand, is the sheer rate of creation of data in the world today,” says Walls, adding that, with 5G adoption, the growth of social media, and the dramatic expansion of the internet of things (IoT), “there is literally more data being created than can be stored. If you think it's hard to manage, store and analyse all the data created by seven billion people, just imagine what it's going to be like with 30 billion objects creating data.”

At the same time, our collective attitude towards data has changed. Walls explains that, back in the 1990’s, at the birth of the internet, the true importance of data datacentremagazine.com

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IBM Achieves the World’s Highest Areal Recording Density for Magnetic Tape Storage

wasn’t fully understood yet. Huge amounts of data generated back then were discarded because people didn’t see the value in it. It’s a point of view that feels very alien in 2021, when data has already spent more than two years as the most valuable commodity on the planet. Even with COVID-19’s dubious gift of a year free from in-person conferences, it’s hard to go longer than a week without being told that “data is the new oil.” Like oil, data in its raw state is only as valuable as the finished, post-refinement product. In order to create value from data, it needs to be correctly aggregated and stored in a way that not only doesn’t cost more than the information is worth, but also ensures that the data is available for as long as possible.

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need to find somewhere to keep it for as long as possible,” says Walls. “With this everincreasing amount of data that is being created, and an increasing need and desire to store it, there really is just one medium that can do it on terms that make any kind of economical sense. That's tape.”

Tape is Economical Storing huge amounts of information in the public cloud can be expensive and, depending on what you’re doing with that data, more modern storage mediums may not make the most economical sense. “If you need to access your data quickly for queries, for transactions, for any task where you need your information quickly and often, obviously tape's not your medium.That's where solid state drives and even disks have a role to play,” Walls explains. “But nothing

CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTS

The Pull of Data Gravity The ways in which data is being created are changing. “Data is now being created everywhere,” explains Jeff Tapley, group managing director for EMEA at Interxion: A Digital Realty Company. “What used to be created, stored and processed in very centralised areas is now being created all over the place: in our offices, our smartphones, even in our homes.” All this disparate data needs to be collected and aggregated if its value is to be extracted into the usable insights that make it valuable. This leads to a problem, however. Tapley warns that, “as this data gets collected and stored, more applications and services start to use it, creating a compounding effect. Over time, so much data is accumulated that it becomes near impossible to move, use,

or draw insights from, creating a Data Gravity effect.” Data Gravity - a term coined back in 2010 by Dave McCrory, who now works as Digital Realty’s VP of growth and global head of insights and analytics - compares large amounts of data to objects with physical mass.

Like mass, the more data you have, the heavier it gets, becoming harder to move around and attracting other matter (or, in the case of data, applications and services) towards it.

If handled incorrectly, cautions Tapley, Data Gravity can have profoundly adverse effects on a business, “from creating numerous issues with data compliance, privacy and security to limiting innovation as businesses become overwhelmed with data they can’t turn into insight or actionable value.” datacentremagazine.com

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comes close to storing the amount of data you can store on tape. We're talking pennies per gigabyte.”

While tape technology from earlier decades certainly couldn’t stand up to modern storage drives in terms of capacity, modern tape reels are the products of years of intensive research and development.

“What I love about good engineers is that they're like the divers in the Olympics. You watch diving and you think 'well gosh, that looks pretty simple - I bet anyone could do that', and then you try to do three and a half somersaults and it turns into the world's worst belly flop,” laughs Walls. Aside from avoiding an embarrassing case of metaphorical pinkbelly, IBM’s engineers have spent the last three decades turning the humble tape cartridge into a modern engineering marvel.

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The latest generation, powered by IBM’s LTO Ultrium 9 technology will hit the market in H1 of this year, and be capable of holding 45 terabytes of compressed data in a block of plastic about the size of a CD case. “If you looked at one of our tape reels with your naked eye, it would look a lot like the cassette tape reels of yesteryear.

But if you look closer, probably under a microscope, the medium has changed radically, in terms of thickness and the number of magnetic bits that can be stored and retrieved, it's far, far greater than you would see on a classic cassette,” Walls explains. In December, IBM broke the world record for tape density, cramming 317 gigabits into every square inch of a new prototype strontium ferrite particulate magnetic tape.

CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTS

Tape is Long-Lasting The average hard disk drive lasts somewhere between three and five years. Flash drives usually last about 10. “Tape has better longevity than almost any other medium.

A flash drive won't last for 30 years, but a tape reel can,” Walls enthuses.

Tape storage also doesn’t draw power. A disk drive spins constantly, even when not in use. “Tape doesn't need energy when you’re not using it,” says Walls. “That’s one of the most beautiful things about it, and why the hyperscalers love it.” Of course, building a storage device that you can fill with data, leave on a shelf for 30 years, retrieve, and extract all that data in readable condition, is no mean feat. “It is amazing the types of obstacles you have to overcome when you're designing a new generation of tape,”

remarks Walls. “That tape is going to need to be stored for 30 years under pressure all the time, at different temperatures hyperscalers these days like to run their data centres much hotter than in the past - At different humidities. Designing a tape that can last for all that time in all sorts of different environmental conditions, and be read by a different generation of tape drive than the one it was written on, is an extremely difficult task.”

Tape is Safe Security is a greater concern to data centre operators and the companies they serve than ever before. In the wake of a year in which the global shift to remote work has left companies more exposed than ever to a rising tide of cyber attacks, being able to

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“ Nothing comes close to storing the amount of data you can store on tape. We're talking pennies per gigabyte” ANDY WALLS CTO, IBM FLASH SYSTEMS

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ensure that sensitive information is kept safe and secure is paramount.

Because information stored on tape is transferred to an analog format, which is then physically placed in a vault or storage room, the air gap it creates makes for an attractive level of security in an age when an attack on a third party partner can lay millions of sensitive records bare - just look at the ongoing fallout from the Solar Winds breach.

The physical tapes themselves are thoroughly encrypted. “You can imagine how critical it is to have really strong security and encryption technology on something that someone can pick up and walk away with,” says Walls. “IBM - more than 20 years ago now - was the first company to create and market encryption and compression for tape. We've really led the way in terms of standards and security practices for the medium.” datacentremagazine.com

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KDDI TELEHOUSE

CONNECTIVITY IS OUR CORE STRENGTH WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

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Ryo Kurita

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KDDI TELEHOUSE

Creating a seamless experience for the end user is the result of a visionary approach in global connectivity services from KDDI TELEHOUSE

C

onnectivity is the core strength of KDDI TELEHOUSE which seems apt for a company that was conceived in the same year as the first text message was successfully sent to a Motorola beeper.

KDDI TELEHOUSE is a single source provider for colocation, cloud migration and connectivity services. According to General Manager, Ryo Kurita, the company predicted a shift in data management 30 years ago.

Today, it has a global footprint of more than 40 data centres offering support for startups to Fortune 500 companies – showing its visionary strategy has been successful.

While the world was perfecting online networks, KDDI TELEHOUSE was perfecting the infrastructure to support the increasing demand for network operations they predicted was coming.

KDDI TELEHOUSE is one of the leading providers of carrier-neutral data centres from Shanghai to Paris and with personnel around the world including San Francisco where Kurita spoke from his office about the importance of a rock solid digital infrastructure to support data – which is getting bigger every day.

“ Connectivity is our core strength” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

“Connectivity is our core strength,” said Kurita who pointed out the company now has a presence of over 40 data centres covering 10 countries including London, New York and Frankfurt.

Ongoing investments by $48 billion Japanese parent company, KDDI, ensures it is one of the most financially stable providers in the industry. KDDI is a Global Fortune 300 Company and continuously invests in its facilities and services.

Kurita commented there can be some confusion over KDDI and TELEHOUSE. “They are basically the same company,” he said.

“KDDI is the parent company of TELEHOUSE and the second largest telecom carrier out of Japan. It provides comprehensive global ICT solutions such as system integration, cloud migration, Internet of Things (IoT), network services and related IT services.

TELEHOUSE is the brand name of the data centre arm and originally established in New York in 1989 and London Docklands opened as our first purpose-built colocation facility in Europe in 1990,” he said.

Connecting mission-critical systems As more enterprises seek ways to re-invent themselves online and stay agile to survive the fallout from the pandemic there are more calls than ever for faster data speed – a call KDDI TELEHOUSE is answering.

Businesses in industry sectors including finance, media, telecommunications, IT hosting, health and cloud providers already datacentremagazine.com

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KDDI TELEHOUSE: Connectivity is our core strength

“ Throughout our whole 30 year journey we've focused on positioning ourselves to be a connectivity data centre provider, enabling an ecosystem that our customers can leverage to easily connect with each other, and then enjoy rich connectivity in our facilities” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

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trust KDDI TELEHOUSE to guard their missioncritical systems.

KDDI TELEHOUSE provides a neutral, scalable peering infrastructure that assures a reliable stable internet connectivity which is a simpler option for faster connections between network, content and cloud providers. Many of the world’s major Internet Exchanges (IX) are established and operating in TELEHOUSE facilities worldwide.

The TELEHOUSE Docklands campus is known as the home to the London Internet Exchange (LINX), the world largest internet exchange carrying a huge amount of European and global internet traffic. Across the waters, TELEHOUSE Paris Voltaire hosts multiple IXs including France IX, and TELEHOUSE America operates NYIIX in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All are significant hub locations for the backbone of the global internet.

Similarly, in Japan, TELEHOUSE Tokyo Otemachi collocates the largest IX in Japan, JPIX, enabling an ecosystem of

KDDI TELEHOUSE

providers that result in quicker, more stable connectivity to the average person on the street and in their homes.

“One of our iconic campuses is London Docklands where we strategically established a carrier neutral data centre and the most connected data centre in the world,” said Kurita. “Throughout our whole 30 year journey we've focused on positioning ourselves to be a connectivity data centre provider, enabling an ecosystem that our customers can leverage to easily connect with each other, and then enjoy rich connectivity in our facilities.”

RYO KURITA TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOCATION: CALIFORNIA Customer-focused and datadriven is how Ryo Kurita, General Manager of KDDI TELEHOUSE, describes his leadership strategy with the KDDI TELEHOUSE. Kurita started his career journey with KDDI 15 years ago working at their Japanese headquarters in Tokyo where he focused on the nonJapanese enterprise market including data centres, mobile phones and fixed network services.

“I relocated to the San Francisco Bay area seven years ago with extended responsibility to lead the team that maintains the relationships with all major US global companies on a global scale,” he said.

Low latency and cost-effective connections With many of the world’s largest cloud providers already established in TELEHOUSE Data Centres, global businesses can benefit from these low latency and costeffective connections. The KDDI TELEHOUSE ecosystem also provides a platform for its customers to connect with more than 3,000 business partners in the TELEHOUSE ecosystem. The private network ensures accelerated access to applications hosted in

$48bn 40+

Global data centers in 10 countries, giving flexibility and scalability

190

Countries have global network coverage

EXECUTIVE BIO

in revenue for Japanese parent company, KDDI

KDDI TELEHOUSE

“ One of our iconic campuses is London Docklands where we strategically established the carrier neutral data centre and most connected data centre in the world” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

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KDDI TELEHOUSE

1989

TELEHOUSE data centre opens at the Teleport, New York, USA

1990

TELEHOUSE Docklands was established and became the home of the London Internet Exchange

1999

TelehouseVoltaire opens in Paris

2000

TELEHOUSE expands in Asia with Hong Kong

2012

TELEHOUSE expands further in Europe with a Frankfurt location

2017

TELEHOUSE launches its cloud connectivity service “TELEHOUSE Cloud Link”

2020

TELEHOUSE launches new fourth facilities in Frankfurt and fifth in Tama, Tokyo

2022

TELEHOUSE is expanding its iconic London Docklands campus, and will open TELEHOUSE South datacentremagazine.com

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“ I think that is a reason why our customers choose TELEHOUSE – to be able to provide a better user experience for their end users” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

public, private or hybrid clouds.

Commenting on what the competitive edge is for KDDI TELEHOUSE, Kurita re-emphasised that “connectivity is our core strength. Customers can connect with all kinds of ISPs, carriers, contents providers and hyperscalers. Many people who use smartphones, or enjoy online services such as SMS gaming or streaming services, are all accessing cloud services – some without realising it,” he said.

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“Many people are accessing cloud services knowingly or unknowingly by using Apple or Google products to some degree. Being able to connect with those cloud and content providers, as well as carriers or ISPs in a faster and easier way is a critical component for all service providers who run their businesses over the internet. I think that is a reason why our customers choose TELEHOUSE – to be able to provide a better user experience for their end users,” he said.

As one of the most widely connected ecosystems globally, TELEHOUSE Carrier Interconnect brings together more than

KDDI TELEHOUSE

750 connectivity partners – such as leading global Internet Exchanges and Tier 1 carriers – with all the major mobile, cloud and content providers as well as enterprises and financial services companies.

Outlining the importance of partnerships with hyperscalers, Kurita said that from a data centre provider perspective, some of their data centres like London Docklands or Paris Voltaire were selected as AWS Direct Connect or Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute locations.

“It is not only a data centre provider relationship, we also support these huge cloud businesses in multiple ways. For example

DID YOU KNOW...

POWER OF PARENT COMPANY: KDDI The parent company of TELEHOUSE is KDDI, a global fortune 300 Japanese telecom and system integration provider.

Established in 1953, KDDI has been operating as a leading telecommunication provider in Japan for over 60 years serving more than 60 million users and providing its own successful brand of handsets.

With about 45,000 employees worldwide, KDDI has more than 100 offices in 28 countries around the world, supporting clients locally. With a diverse portfolio of services, KDDI owns and operates a number of global subsidiaries to ensure their clients have access to the best performing end-to-end ICT infrastructure.

KDDI’s offers a full-scale end-toend international network services to more than 190 countries. This enables customers with overseas subsidiaries to build full-mesh global networks by accessing KDDI’s Global network.

KDDI maintains Network Operations Centers (NOC) in its TELEHOUSE sites to monitor the network infrastructure of customers to ensure their performance is uninterrupted.

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“ We help many enterprises adapt to make their business sustainable and efficient now and in the future” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

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with TELEHOUSE Cloud Link, we provide a platform for companies to access multiple cloud providers, including Google, AWS, and Microsoft. Another example is last year when we launched AWS Wavelength in Japan showing how KDDI TELEHOUSE can bring connectivity and cloud together. We have AWS Wavelength equipment located in our data centres right at the edge of our mobile network in Japan. This enables AWS users to develop and launch their applications at the edge of the network to leverage the ultra low latency and high bandwidth over our 5G network. These are just some examples of how we are going to strengthen such partnerships with these hyperscale cloud providers.”

Always looking ahead KDDI TELEHOUSE leverages decades of experience in technology to anticipate

KDDI TELEHOUSE

where their customers will be tomorrow.

Their Tokyo research and development engineers are investing in developing technologies that will be game-changers in our future.

“We help many enterprises adapt to make their business sustainable and efficient now and in the future,” said Kurita.

“One good example is in the IoT arena.

Our IoT solution was adopted by some major automobile companies and our SIM cards are embedded into their automobiles on a global scale. For instance, KDDI has collaborated with Toyota Motor North America and AT&T who provide 4G LTE connectivity. It’s adding a feature of data communications to the legacy car function itself – our platform is helping those automobile companies to collect and analyse the behavior of how they drive. I think that is a very exciting business model shift.

open to this as long as it had synergy with their existing service portfolio.

Looking ahead, Kurita outlined some of the main expansion plans for TELEHOUSE. “We’ll be launching our new Dockland campus, TELEHOUSE South in early 2022 which is just 300 meters from our existing London Docklands campus. A network of dark fiber cables will facilitate integration with the existing Dockland campus. This location enables customers to benefit from low latency

TELEHOUSE DOCKLANDS – WORLD’S MOST CONNECTED DATA CENTRE

DID YOU KNOW...

Strategic acquisitions On the subject of global acquisitions, Kurita said, not limited to the data centre business, but for KDDI as a whole, they were always

TELEHOUSE Docklands North became Europe's first purposebuilt neutral colocation facility when it opened in 1990 and is the most connected data centre in the world.

London Internet Exchange (LINX) traffic has been moving through the carrier-neutral TELEHOUSE campus since 1994 due to the number of carriers present in the data centre and the level of latency.

In August 2016, TELEHOUSE Europe added to the facility and opened a $177 million North Two data centre of 24,000 square metres which is the only UK data centre to own a 132 kV on-campus grid substation that is directly connected to the National Grid, reducing transmission losses and improving power density and service continuity.

TELEHOUSE London North is listed as most populated data centre in EMEA by the data centre rankings working with more than 530 network carriers, ISPs and ASPs.

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“ I predict that data centre demands are going to be on a more micro a level and spread around more locations with the combination of a shorter latency path” RYO KURITA

GENERAL MANAGER, KDDI TELEHOUSE

and access the highly connected environment and dense ecosystem.

“We are also adding a couple of more megawatts capacity in Paris and Frankfurt as well and during the last year we also opened a large Tokyo data centre campus – what we call “Tama 5” – that gives us plenty of space to build even more data centre capacity in the future.

“As a connectivity data centre provider we'll continue to expand our data centre portfolio on a global scale as well as enhancing our connectivity related services such as Cloud link and AWS Wavelength,” he said.

Casting his thoughts to the future, Kurita said: “I think everybody agrees mobile edge computing is a buzz word in the data centre and the cloud industry at the moment because more real time edge transaction is needed by the nature of the business and cloud providers want to get closer to their end users to realise seamless transactions with any devices.

“So more of the data needs to be processed locally and that may eventually require more data centre capacity even in tier two or tier three cities. That may also require more well established connectivity even in some emerging countries. I predict that data centre demands are going to be on a more micro level and be spread around more locations with the combination of a shorter latency path,” he said.

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TOP TEN

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TOP TEN

DATA CENTRE BRANDS Welcome to our 2021 list of Data Centre Magazine’s top ten brands leading the global data centre industry.

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

T

he global data centre industry is booming. The increased demand for digital infrastructure services brought on by the pandemic, coupled with ongoing innovation and adoption in the Internet of Things, AI, 5G and HPC sectors, is cultivating a groundswell in the data centre market.

Recent data suggest that this year, the global data centre industry will grow by 14% in 2021, well ahead of other sectors that are currently feeling the pinch of COVID-19. In a recent survey, 96% of data centre professionals saw demand for their services increase last year.

“The impact of COVID-19 fundamentally accelerated the concept of ‘mission critical’.

Overnight, businesses became even more reliant on the cloud to enable operations, processes and remote collaboration,” says ABB Power Conversion president Jeff Schnitzer.

At the same time, the industry is changing, as more and more workloads shift away from enterprise colocation and on-prem data centres towards public and hybrid cloud architectures. 2021 is going to be the year of the hyperscaler, with almost 600 hyperscale facilities online around the world at the end of 2020, and more than 219 new projects currently underway. datacentremagazine.com

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10 BT

CEO: Philip Jansen

Data Centres: 48 As one of the UK’s major telecom operators, BT is a rare bird among MNOs. Over the past five years, data centre operators have largely taken pains to divest themselves of their data centre assets. BT by contrast has grown significantly, although mostly outside the UK. The company operates a network of 48 colocation data centres throughout Europe (although it has one in New Jersey), providing private compute, managed compute and cloud services to companies like Telefonica, BBC News and the Football Association.

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09 Cyxtera

CEO: Nelson Fonseca

Data Centres: 62

Cyxtera was founded in 2017 from the combination of CenturyLink and Savvis’ data centre portfolios, and is currently focused on the US market, although it does operate facilities in London, Amsterdam, Germany, China, Singapore and Australia. The company operates a global platform of 62 data centres spread across 29 markets. Cyxtera also focuses on bringing leading edge tech to its customers in an affordable manner. In August of last year, the company announced the launch of an AI hardware as a service solution, in partnership with NVIDIA, to better serve the global HPC market.

TOP TEN

08

“Switch covers the US’ four major latency zones with its four megascale campuses.”

China Telecom

CEO: Xiaofeng Deng

Data Centres: 683 With more than 287,000 employees, China Telecom is one of the largest communication service providers and data centre operators in the world. The company has more than 456 data centres operating in mainland China alone, with another 187 spread across 71 metros internationally. The company also owns and operates the world’s largest data centre campus, the Inner Mongolia Information Park, which has a footprint of more than 10mn square feet.

07 Switch

CEO: Rob Roy

Data Centres: 4 (Campuses) The dark horse of the US data centre market, Switch - largely thanks, perhaps, to the company’s maverick tech genius CEO Rob Roy - does things a little differently. Switch covers the US’ four major latency zones with its four megascale campuses. The largest, in Tahoe Reno, Nevada, will have a total capacity of up to 815 MW upon completion, making it the world’s most powerful colocation campus. datacentremagazine.com

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05 AWS

CEO: Andy Jassy

Data Centres: 200+

06 Google

CEO: Sundar Pichai

Data Centres: 21+ Probably the most influential tech brand in the world, Alphabet Inc’s Google also casts a long shadow over the hyperscale data centre industry. Google was the first major cloud provider to make a carbon neutral commitment last year, and its highly sustainable designs and site selection practices keep it at the forefront of green innovation in the sector.

Google uses its facilities to support its cloud services, as well as its own operations, which include popular video streaming site YoutTube.

Combined, Google and Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) own more than half of the hyperscale data centres in the world. AWS keeps the locations of its sprawling network of hyperscale data centres a closely guarded secret, but notes it operates more than 200 facilities across 24 AWS Cloud regions serving 245 countries. AWS has some of the most sustainable and efficient data centres in the world, providing on-demand cloud services to individuals, enterprises and governments on a pay-asyou-go basis.

TOP TEN

04

NTT Communications CEO: Bob Pryor

Data Centres: 160 The data centre arm of japanese telecom NTT has been dominating the APAC market over the past few years, as well as making meaningful progress in the UK, India, and US - where the company purchased operator RagingWire in 2018. NTT operates 160 data centres in 20 countries, with a combined floorspace of more than 500,000 square metres. NTT offers colocation, data centre infrastructure management, managed hybrid infrastructure and consulting services to a network of global clients, through the largest single portfolio of Tier 3 data centres in the market.

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03

Digital Realty/Interxion CEO: Bill Stein

Data Centres: 280+ One of the world’s leading brands, Digital Realty owns and operates a colossal network of more than 280 data centres in 47 metro areas across 22 countries through its Platform Digital offering, which launched in 2019. A significant number of those facilities became part of Digital Realty in March of 2020, when the company acquired European data centre operator Interxion for approximately $8.4bn.

The combined entity now provides more than 440 MW of of capacity in Europe alone.

02

TOP TEN

Lumen

CEO: Jeff Storey

Data Centres: 350+

Rebranded from CenturyLink in September of last year, Lumen’s data centre portfolio makes it one of the largest hyperscale and enterprise colocation providers in the world, hosting Amazon Web Services, Google and YouTube in its facilities. The company has more than 350 data centres active across five continents. The company also has a heavy hand in communications infrastructure, operating more than 450,000 miles of fibre in over 60 countries, which supports its dedicated cloud computing platform.

“ The company has more than 350 data centres active across five continents.” datacentremagazine.com Magazine.com 139 139

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“ With more than 220 data centres in over 26 countries, Equinix has one of the largest and bestconnected data centre footprints of any brand in the industry. ”

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Equinix

CEO: Charles J. Meyers

Data Centres: 220+

With more than 220 data centres in over 26 countries, Equinix has one of the largest and bestconnected data centre footprints of any brand in the industry.

The California-based operator has become a household name for colocation and hyperscale cloud services. Equinix counts global brands like Netflix and Cisco among its ecosystem of nearly 10,000 clients, providing industry-leading interconnection on a global scale. Equinix is also a recent signatory of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, in which it committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2030.

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LEADING THE WAY IN ASIA PACIFIC WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

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PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

DIGITAL REALTY

Singapore (SIN12) Data Centre datacentremagazine.com

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DIGITAL REALTY

Mark Fong, VP Sales of Digital Realty’s APAC and Japan divisions, talks sustainability, site selection, and the region-wide expansion of PlatformDIGITAL®

T

he APAC data centre industry is at a critical stage. Spurred by the pandemic and the transformative effects of ongoing, widespread digitalisation from Seoul to Singapore, the region’s data centre industry finds itself on a trajectory towards unprecedented growth.

According to Structure Research, APAC is now the largest data centre market in the world in terms of colocation revenue – at US$24.1bn compared to USD $19.8bn for North America – and also the fastest growing with a 13.7% CAGR over the next 5 years. The pandemic has further accelerated this growth, pushing the region to the forefront of data centre development for the foreseeable future.

This expansion of digital services is a necessary one, as the data generated across the digital economy grows exponentially. By 2025, Gartner forecasts that there will be more than 25bn active IoT endpoints around the world, generating as much as 79 zettabytes of data every year. “The huge influx of enterprise data can lead to difficulties in moving it. Barriers brought on by data gravity will cause unfavourable complexity when considering business locations and data proximity to users,” warns Mark Fong, VP Sales of Digital Realty’s APAC and Japan divisions. “It is important for businesses

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DIGITAL REALTY

By

2025 Gartner forecasts that there will be more than

25 billion

active IoT endpoints around the world, generating as much as

79 zettabytes of data every year

datacentremagazine.com

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DIGITAL REALTY

“ It is important for businesses to overcome data gravity barriers that accompany digital transformation amidst global expansion efforts” MARK FONG,

VP SALES, APAC AND JAPAN, DIGITAL REALTY

Hong Kong (HKG11) Data Centre

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April 2021

to overcome data gravity barriers that accompany digital transformation amidst global expansion efforts.”

At the same time, the need for sustainable practice is being felt more and more keenly in a region where green design has historically lagged behind regions like Europe and North America for years.

The industry needs to change and grow simultaneously and, during tumultuous and uncertain times like these, the opportunities for a company with the ability to force the advantage are virtually limitless.

For Fong, there’s only one company capable of capitalising on this opportunity.

“We want Digital Realty to become the recognised data centre leader across

DIGITAL REALTY

Asia Pacific and the only global provider dedicated to the full customer spectrum from service providers to enterprises,” he says. “We are well on our way to achieving those goals as we continue to expand our presence in key markets in the region including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore and enter new countries like Korea.”

MARK FONG TITLE: VP SALES COMPANY: DIGITAL REALTY INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES LOCATION: APAC AND JAPAN Mark brings over 23 years of experience in the technology industry, contributing in various capacities in direct sales, channel management and business development across Asia Pacific and Japan.

In his current role as Regional Vice President of Digital Realty, Mark leads the company’s sales strategy and execution in Asia Pacific and Japan covering hyperscale, scale, enterprise colocation and interconnection customers. In addition, Mark is a core member of the leadership team responsible for Digital Realty's rapid expansion in the region.

Prior to Digital Realty, Mark held regional leadership positions in both direct and channel capacities with top technology companies including Equinix, Oracle and Commvault.

EXECUTIVE BIO

A Year Like No Other The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the APAC data centre industry cannot be understated. Reflecting on the last 12 months, Fong notes that, “The pandemic has caused a permanent shift in how businesses consume services. The cloud

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Pushing the frontiers of innovation, quality and excellence At Newark, we have a diverse talent pool with a strong management team, we provide integrated & valued added fluid and air handling solutions, which drive our continuous growth in Singapore and the region.

Learn more

OUR PARTNERS

DIGITAL REALTY

PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS: DIGITAL REALTY AND NEWARK ENGINEERING “Our strategic partners have played a critical role in supporting our business throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Our business relies on timely delivery of spares as a result of maintenance routines or break fix routines. Additionally, our construction program requires timely delivery of mechanical and electrical infrastructure. The pandemic has really highlighted how complex the supply chain and logistics systems are. With air freight severely impacted in early to mid2020, our partners worked with us to provide updates on how their business continuity efforts were rolling out in support of our ongoing requirements,” says Fong.

“Newark Engineering has been one of our key partners since our first Singapore Data Centre (SIN10), they are also currently working with us to expand the partnership into our second Hong Kong facility (HKG11).

“They are also the local distributors for a number of key pieces of cooling equipment.”

“ We want Digital Realty to become the recognised data centre leader across Asia Pacific” MARK FONG,

VP SALES, APAC AND JAPAN, DIGITAL REALTY

has come to the fore and this will continue driving the demand for data centre providers like Digital Realty.” In response to these seismic shifts in customer demand, Fong has seen the APAC data centre industry go “from strength to strength”, emphasising that the pandemic “has fundamentally changed the way enterprises conduct business and how people generally consume services. Businesses are now prioritising their digital strategies and building long-term resilience.” datacentremagazine.com

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DIGITAL REALTY

“ The pandemic has caused a permanent shift in how businesses consume services” MARK FONG,

VP SALES, APAC AND JAPAN, DIGITAL REALTY

As digital services have become akin to an essential utility like electricity or water, Fong notes that many organisations are learning (sometimes the hard way) that an all-in public or private cloud strategy isn’t the only way to go.

“They inevitably end up with some sort of hybrid offering and this realisation has helped us in two main ways,” he explains, noting that, not only has the shift towards hybrid cloud in APAC led to a rising awareness of the ways in which an operator like Digital Realty can support its customers’ digital journeys, but also that the past year has seen an increased shift in demand away from the all-in public cloud model towards colocation services like those offered by Digital Realty.

A Pan-APAC Expansion As demand and opportunity grow, Digital Realty is executing an expansion across APAC of historic proportions. The expansion involves spinning up new data centres in markets where Digital Realty already has an established presence, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, as well as entering new markets like South Korea.

“We’re excited to launch our third data centre in Singapore, Digital Loyang II (SIN12),” says Fong. “SIN12 will leverage PlatformDIGITAL® to enable global distributed workflows in the data centre to remove data gravity barriers and scale digital businesses.”

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DIGITAL REALTY

Digital Loyang II ( SIN12) Our first retail colocation-enabled data centre in Singapore

Seoul (ICN10) Data Centre datacentremagazine.com

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DIGITAL REALTY

The facility will bring another 50 MW of capacity to a market where the company already delivers 69.4 MW through its SIN10 (45 MW) and SIN11 (24.4 MW) facilities.

“SIN12’s high power capacity will ensure more storage capability and host larger amounts of data. It also serves as a gateway for customers to strengthen their connection regionally and globally,” adds Fong. “We’re also expanding our customer reach covering both large scale as well as smaller enterprise customers through our product offerings.”

In Hong Kong, Digital Realty is spinning up its second carrier-neutral data centre in the back half of 2021. Located in the urban area of Kwai Chung, HKG11 will deliver an additional 24 MW of critical IT capacity, right in the heart of Hong Kong’s rapidly developing data centre cluster.

Also on the horizon is Digital Seoul 1, a 12 MW facility scheduled to start operating in Q4 of 2021. The project was announced at a virtual groundbreaking ceremony in June last year, and represents a vital first step into the South Korean market which, despite being one of the most digitally-developed markets in the world, has often proved a tough nut to crack for international firms.

When selecting these sites, Fong explains that there are a number of factors that Digital Realty takes into account, from “land availability, access to power, domestic and international telecom services,” to “government stability and regulation, domestic adoption of hybrid cloud services, and international market interest.”

It’s an interesting market to operate in, says Fong. “APAC is not a single country like the US or a union like the EU, and that poses unique challenges in having to account for vastly differing regulatory frameworks when doing business, as well as culturally different ways of buying and selling.”

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April 2021

“ Our strategic partners have played a critical role in supporting our business throughout the COVID-19 crisis” MARK FONG,

VP SALES, APAC AND JAPAN, DIGITAL REALTY

DIGITAL REALTY

Growing Green “The energy consumption of data centres has gained much attention in APAC due to the extent of their carbon emissions,” says Fong. “According to a major local telco in Singapore, almost 7% of the total energy used in the country comes from data centres. That is a significantly higher percentage than the 1-2% average you see in the rest of the world.”

If APAC is to balance astronomical growth with sweeping sustainable change, its data centre operators need to think, build and run

Almost

7%

of the total energy used in Singapore comes from data centres compared to

green. Digital Realty’s approach to increasing its sustainability in APAC is firmly rooted in its efficiency commitments.

Fong explains that the company is “Deploying better technologies to improve cooling, improving the energy utilisation of facilities and IT systems, and adopting ‘smart’ approaches and AI to identify where energy can be reduced.” He adds that, “We prioritise innovations in cooling efficiency because 35-40% of total energy consumed by data centres is used to run energy-intensive cooling equipment.” In Southeast Asia, more than 95% of data centres still use air-based cooling, a highly inefficient system from the days when facility management more or less boiled down to the mantra “keep it as cool as possible and don’t worry about the costs”.

Fong explains that, for Digital Realty, “Liquid cooling technology is considered to be the preferred solution to effectively cool down heat-intensive CPUs and SSDs,” noting that modern liquid cooling systems “can reduce power consumption by 20-30% and water usage by up to 50%.”

The Road Ahead The coming year will be one of simultaneous, sustained growth and expansion for Digital Realty in APAC, as new data centres open across the region, leading to new opportunities for stakeholders, partners and customers alike.

Looking to the months ahead, Fong and his team have lofty ambitions, and every intention of achieving them. “We aim to propel Digital Realty to become the recognised data centre leader across APAC,” he says. “We’re also aiming to seamlessly execute our expansion efforts in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, as well as opening our first facility in South Korea.”

1-2% in the rest of the world datacentremagazine.com

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