Macquarie Hosting has signed a A$1.5 million two year deal with market surveillance technology provider SMARTS Group to host its financial market monitoring software for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Australia’s corporate, markets and financial services regulator.

A new report prepared by KPMG and McKinsey for the federal government claims that the National Broadband Network will have problems if there is not a level playing field for retailers. They say that if gear is located in Telstra exchanges there could be problems. The report says that practical access to a point where the Internet connects requires the colocation of customer equipment at the POI.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia has chosen to outsource management of its network operations to Nokia Siemens Networks under a seven-year agreement. Nokia Siemens will also supply equipment to upgrade VHA‘s core network, but VHA has made no announcement on a supplier for its radio network. A VHA spokeswoman said that RFP responses were still being evaluated and there was no timeframe for an announcement.

Verizon Business is evaluating the launch of Sydney and Melbourne data centres as it seeks to encourage customers to adopt its cloud services offering, Computing as a Service.Detailing the expansion of its local and regional data centres, area vice president of Australia and New Zealand at Verizon Business, John Karabin, said that the new facilities would support the sale of related services such as managed applications and interconnection with its own secure IP networks.

ShareFile, a leader in virtual data room and FTP site alternatives for business, recently opened a fourth data centre located in Asia. This data centre is just the latest in a long line of upgrades made by ShareFile in the recent months to enhance their already outstanding level of service reliability and speed.

Datacom scooped the top prize at the New Zealand hi-tech awards in Auckland on Friday night, with the judges saying it was in a class of its own. The IT company now has over 3000 employees and was described by the judges as a revenue and profit machine.

Melbourne IT has revealed its intention to create a shared storage environment across its data centres, potentially using EMC's VPlex virtual storage technology. The web hosting firm was Australia's only beta tester for VPlex, which - in its first iterations - enabled customers to pool storage resources either within a single data centre or between two data centres up to 100 km apart.

International consulting firm BroadGroup, together with the Malaysian Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) which directs and oversees Malaysia’s National ICT Initiative has announced the launch of the first international summit for data centres. The event will take place in Kuala Lumpur 29-30 September 2010.

.Data Centres Malaysia Summit 2010 will include a special focus on regional and international enterprise customers of data centres and their outsourcing needs as emerging private clouds, new technologies and market shift impact across the sector.

Assam is gearing up to make big leap in IT industry and attract country’s top BPO firms and call centres to the state by improving IT infrastructure and strengthening Internet connectivity. As a first move the government is setting up a State Data Centre in Guwahati which would serve as a centre of IT and communication networks in the state.

The construction of the data centre being set up inside the state secretariat would cost Rs 12.13 crore, while another Rs 49.4 crore would be pumped in for the IT infrastructure of the centre.

Source: IGovernment

Construction is under way on a new facility that will incorporate a data centre and service hub for IBM New Zealand’s centre is being built to support its clients’ applications and operations. The building marks the start of an investment of more than NZ$80 million in the data centre over the next decade. It will be located at Highbrook Business Park, East Tamaki, and IBM is working with Highbrook Development Ltd through a long-term leasing and operating commitment.

Trimax an end-to-end provider of IT Services and Solutions; System Integration, data centre services, and IT Infrastructure Management, has designed, implemented and operating 1.20 lakh sq ft of data centre at Bangalore in partnership with ITI Limited.

Trimax is empanelled System Integrator to BSNL and MTNL and Pan-India partner with BSNL to provide Managed Enterprise Services such as Managed Network Services. Its presence at more than 100 locations in India strengthens its scalability and reach to serve their needs in remote areas.

Internet Initiative Japan, Japan's Internet access and comprehensive network solutions providers, has announced its decision to commercialise the modular eco-data centre based on the results of the proof of concept testing conducted this past February, with construction beginning in June 2010.

KVH, a provider of IT and communication services in Japan, has announced that KVH Tokyo Data Center 2 (TDC2), its second commercially available data centre in the Tokyo area will be completed and operational by February 2011. Located just outside of Tokyo in Inzai City, Chiba Prefecture, KVH TDC2 will effectively address the increasing need for turn-key, high-specification data centre space for corporations demanding high power and cooling capacity.

Digital Realty Trust, the world's largest wholesale data centre provider, announced today that Kris Kumar has joined the Company as Regional Head, Asia Pacific, a new position at Digital Realty Trust.

Mr. Kumar will be based in Singapore and responsible for corporate activities in Asia and the Pacific Rim, including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and India. Mr. Kumar will be overseeing several initiatives, such as developing relationships with partners and new customers in the region, identifying strategic investment opportunities, and coordinating operations.

The Asia-Pacific WAN (wide area network) services market is forecasted to hit nearly US$13.3 billion in revenues by the close of 2010, rising ten percent over 2009 billings of US$12.0 billion. The market grew a modest 6.2% last year in spite of one of the worst recessions. Frost & Sullivan research manager Arun Chandrasekaran rationalizes that the growth was stoked by cross-regional branch expansions and data centre consolidation.

Harbour MSP, a Frontline Systems company, is announcing the development of a new tier three data centre in Melbourne to meet the demand from its current customers, and bridge the gap in commercial data centre offerings in Victoria.

Datacom will spend A$2 million on a 70-rack expansion of the Metro iX data centre in Perth after acquiring the facility from Perth iX for an amount "in excess of A$10 million".

Datacom's Western Australian managing director Basil Lenzo told iTnews that the company had acquired both the Metro iX asset - currently about 200 racks in size - and its client base of mostly colocation customers. The Perth iX holding company would retain control of its other data centre asset.

Source: IT News

Net4 India, a Noida-based network and application provider, has said that it has raised Rs 8.04-crore through preferential allotment to a private equity firm, Granite Hill India Opportunities Fund. "Net4 India has diluted 4.7% promoter share to Granite Hill India Opportunities Fund to fund its expansion plan," Net4 India Ltd Chairman and Managing Director, Jasjit Sawhney, told reporters.

"This expansion will be in data centre services and data connectivity services. We will be setting up a 30,000 sq ft data centre in Chennai," Sawhney said.

Gulf Bridge International, the Middle East's first privately owned submarine cable operator and Sify Technologies, a leader in Enterprise and Consumer Internet Services in India with global delivery capabilities, have signed an agreement to land GBI's sub-sea cable system in India. Gulf Bridge International also announced that Sify will provide a landing station for GBI's cable in Mumbai, India.

Domestic IT services majors Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro Technologies and Tech Mahindra and global players like IBM and Japan-based NEC are among the 10 shortlisted companies for the Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) biometrics job. “This is the second stage of short listing. These firms are now qualified for a request for proposal. In the next five-six weeks, the final bidder will be announced,” said a source close to the development. The size of the contract could not be confirmed.