The Federal Department of Human Services is on track to reduce its collection of seven data centres to three over the next 12 months according to outgoing CIO John Wadeson. Speaking at the eGovernment conference at Cebit, Mr Wadeson said that following the passage of legislation in May that will see agencies such as Centrelink and Medicare folded into the new Department of Human Services super-portfolio from 1 July, the organisation was on a two to three year journey to integrate and streamline systems and infrastructure.

TelePacific Communications, a provider of integrated voice and data telecommunications services in California and Nevada, has announced it has completed the acquisition of Orange County Internet Xchange, a dedicated provider of carrier class colocation services.

OCiX operates a 10,000 sq ft SAS 70 Type II certified facility located in Santa Ana, California. TelePacific plans to expand the facility to 18,000 sq ft in the near future.

Source: Sacramento Bee

Savvis Federal Systems, a subsidiary of Savvis, has announced that it has been awarded a US$9.8 million, five-year (base and four options) delivery order under its General Services Administration schedule by the US Federal Election Commission.

Under the terms of the agreement, Savvis – a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions - will provide colocation, managed hosting, security and network services, as well as professional services to the FEC in two Savvis data centres. In addition, Savvis will host the FEC.gov website and disaster recovery solutions.

In response to growing customer demand and rapid organizational expansion, FINCAD is pleased to announce the construction of a new state-of-the-art data centre to be housed in the company’s Surrey headquarters. The world-class facility brings to 5 the total number of centres the firm operates globally.

ByteGrid Holdings, a newly formed company focused on the acquisition, development and operation of premier wholesale data centre facilities, has announced that it has acquired a fully operational, highly resilient data centre campus on an ultra-secure 11-acre site in Silver Spring, Maryland from a Fortune 50 financial services institution that will continue to lease a portion of the data centre under ByteGrid’s ownership.

After winning the European Data Centre Award for Entrepreneur of the Year 2011, at the recent Data Centres in Europe 2011 Awards ceremony Andrew Gilbert, Managing Director and founder of Britain’s fastest growing data centre company, Node4, said “2012 is going to be very exciting for Node4 and we are already planning our fifth data centre with a sixth also on the cards. The future of cloud computing and data centre technology is rapidly evolving and I anticipate the continuous growth of UK’s market to remain strong for the foreseeable.”

A question mark is hanging over Hewlett-Packard's commitment to build a NZ$60 million data centre in the Waikato after the company repeatedly declined to respond to speculation from within the computer industry that it had shelved the initiative.

Jammu: In a major fillip to e-governance in Jammu and Kashmir, the state is all set to have its State Data Centre) - a highly reliable and secure infrastructure to host it. "We will have State Data Centre. It would be implemented in next three to four months period," Commissioner-Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, J&K Government, M K Dwevedi said.

Dwevedi, who is looking after the project, said "We have already tender against the Request for Proposal. Five companies have applied recently. Now we are in technical evaluation".

Source: Daily Bhaskat

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced that Orange Business Services - Trading Solutions, the leader in voice and electronic trading infrastructure and services for the trading communities has chosen Equinix’s NY4 data centre to enable direct market access to its trading partners in Brazil.

The Benaroya Co., based in Bellevue, Washington has purchased HP's 60,252-sq ft data centre at 9700 W. Bethel Court, near Franklin and Maple Grove roads in Boise. The data centre was one of HP's key national data centres. HP sold the facility as part of its worldwide data centre consolidation.

Telehouse West, the latest addition to the Telehouse family’s extensive network of premium data centres and colocation facilities around the word, added even more space. In order to meet increasing demand, the fifth floor in the Telehouse West building will now be utilized to provide 925 sq m of premier colocation space.

Telehouse West is a nine story data centre with 19,000 sq m of technical and customer space. A secure data centre environment is available to each of the five tenant floors. It brings the total amount of power at the Docklands site to a 40 MVA.

Latisys a national provider of colocation, managed hosting, managed services and disaster recovery solutions, has announced that Gannon Technologies Group has selected Latisys as its data centre colocation provider.

Gannon, which develops pattern matching and biometrics software for commercial and government customers such as the Department of Defense, will leverage Latisys' state-of-the-art Ashburn, Virginia data centre campus for colocation space, power and remote IT management support.

Source: Benzinga

Proact, the largest European company focusing on storage and archiving, will deliver a new storage system for Oulun Tietotekniikka serving the City of Oulu. The capacity challenge caused by the increased amount of data, among others, was solved with an EMC Celerra NS960 storage system with nearly one hundred terabytes.

The system includes FAST functionality that permits automatic transfer of data from a tier level to another according to current need. This provides a very efficient storage system with lower total costs than before.

Source: Swedish Wire

Regional enterprises are turning to data centre leasing option due to less legacy infrastructure encumbering adoption and increasing need for computing power, says Digital Realty Trust exec.

Parseq, which specialises in mobile and online banking software and technology-led outsourcing services, is launching a new hosting and managed services proposition to commercialise its data centre facility. As well as migrating its existing clients to the facility, the Group has signed a partnership agreement with a data centre specialist in order to drive new customer sales.

The Tier 3 data centre, which currently comprises over 10,000 sq ft and can accommodate up to 320 racks, is located on a six acre freehold site at the Group's offices in Hellaby, Rotherham

PPL, working through the permitting process, will develop a 115,000 sq ft data and operations centre in Upper Macungie Township. If all goes smoothly, ground will break in the fall.

The centre will be built on a 12-acre site near Route 100 and Interstate 78, about 10 miles west of PPL's international headquarters in downtown Allentown. Completion is pencilled for late 2012.

 Source: Citybiz

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Google officials are moving forward with a US$600 million data centre project in Pryor that’s expected to bring in dozens of jobs to the state. Google will eventually employ 100 at the facility in the MidAmerica Industrial Park, Matt Dunne, a spokesman for Google, said.

Cavern Technologies, a provider of mission critical data centre solutions, in unique subsurface space designed for security and energy efficiency, located in Lenexa, Kansas, is pleased to announce they have completed an expansion of the Kansas City data centre. This phase of the expansion added 16 additional private data suites, with additional expansions to follow.

According to Cavern Technologies CEO Pete Clune, about 60% of the new data centre space is already under contract to new & existing clients, who plan to house mission critical computer systems.

Allied Telesis' has announced that Microscan - a Mumbai based multi-service provider has selected Allied Telesis' award winning SBx908 platform for their data Center infrastructure. The solution will be deployed by Allied Telesis for Microscan's next generation data centre.

Led by Allied Telesis, the selected VC-Stack technology supports Microscan requirements for a data centre with the flexibility to scale and meet aggressive growth requirements and business agility to rapidly roll out new services.

Source: Express Computer

USCarrier Telecom, a South-eastern wholesale provider of high-speed, long-haul, fibre optic transport has announced the opening of their new 8,000 sq ft 24/7 Network Control Center in Macon, Georgia.

This centrally located state-of-the-art NCC features colocation space and lab facilities complete with SONET, Packet Transmission, LAN/WAN and fibre system monitoring equipment from leading telecom manufacturers that allows for complex troubleshooting and testing.

Source: Sacramento Bee

Avista has renewed its outsourcing contract with Hewlett-Packard for an additional seven years. Spokane, Washington-based Avista is a power provider covering eastern Washington and parts of Idaho and Oregon. The company has been an HP client for nearly twenty years.

Fortress International Group, a provider of consulting and engineering, construction management and 24/7/365 site services for mission-critical facilities, has announced that it has been awarded a US$16 million design-build contract with a multi-billion dollar, privately held staffing solutions company that specializes in providing domestic and international companies with outsourced technical personnel.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced that Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods and supplies, has expanded into Equinix’s Silicon Valley SV5 International Business Exchange data centre.

Etsy already leverages Platform Equinix in New Jersey and currently runs its off-site disaster recovery and storage infrastructure from Equinix’s Silicon Valley SV2 facility.

Source: Equinix
 

ARI, a provider of technology-enabled solutions that help dealers, distributors and manufacturers, has reported results for its third quarter ended April 30, 2011. The Company posted a significant increase in operating income, net income and earnings per share, as well as organic growth in revenue during the third quarter of fiscal 2011.

Mastek Ltd. said its wholly owned subsidiary Mastek UK had signed a multi-year framework agreement for IT services in the UK with an initial minimum commitment of £8 million pound, which is expected to improve its revenues in the forthcoming years.

The company said the deal would involve Mastek absorbing the transitioning cost of around 4 million pound sterling during the July-Sept 2011 quarter.

Source: RTT

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HP has announced Wärtsilä Corporation of Finland, a leading power solutions provider to the global marine and energy markets, has signed a three-year outsourcing services agreement with two one-year extension options. HP will deliver information technology services to help Wärtsilä become even more productive servicing their customers in the 70 countries where it operates.

Telstra is set to build a new 2000 sq m data centre in Melbourne as part of its A$800 million, five-year Cloud services agenda. The expenditure will also include modernising the facilities at existing Telstra data centres in Sydney and Melbourne, expanding the telco’s enterprise applications, launching an online partner portal, and enhancing T-Suite software-as-a-service capabilities.

Telstra's chief operations officer, Brendon Riley, said the new Melbourne facility will increase its data centre capability by more than 40% and provide Cloud requirements for "many years to come".

Tesco has revealed that it is in the final stages of re-platforming its banking business. “Tesco Bank continues to make good progress and is now in the final stages of the transition to its own systems and infrastructure,” the company said in its 2011 Q1 management statement.

Among other systems, it has an in-house designed supply chain application, running on IBM system p servers based on Unix. Tesco Bank also has a deal with Cable & Wireless for managed data centres and hosted telephony for its insurance and banking customer service centres in Newcastle and Glasgow.

The Bunker has announced that Touchline Video,a UK-wide trade only value-added distributor to the audio, video and web conferencing industries has selected The Bunker to provide ultra secure colocation hosting and services.

Quality Technology Services will invest US$20 million to expand and upgrade its Lenexa data centre operation. The company bought the 40,000 sq ft building it was leasing in Lenexa’s Pine Ridge West Business Park.

Dimension Data is considering building a large-scale internet data centre in Korea. It is catching people’s attention whether or not Dimension Data will create another IDC in Korea. “The headquarters of Dimension Data is looking for a partner to build an IDC via Dimension Data Korea,” said Choi Seung-eok, CEO of Dimension Data Korea on June 19.

Hostway has announced an expansion of its 18,000 sq ft Tampa, Florida-based data centre to include FlexCloud Server services. Hostway now operates 12 data centres throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Crown Worldwide Group, a privately held company with its global headquarters in Hong Kong has appointed Telstra International to manage its MPLS, Global Internet and Global data centre systems. The deal is valued at US$8.2 million over a five-year period and will see Telstra manage an initial 80 Global Wide Area Network sites, including two data centre migrations.

TEO, a provider of integrated telecommunication, IT and television services, and Lukoil Baltija, oil product retailers, have signed an agreement for the provision of data centre, internet, data communication and voice telephony services. The total value of the three-year agreements signed by the companies is about LTL1.8 million.

Developer Highbridge Properties has started demolishing the former Atmel semiconductor wafer fabrication plant at Cobalt Park in North Shields. The Atmel site, previously Siemens, is being cleared to make way for the construction of the second of three new data centres planned for the business park. The manufacturing plant was originally founded on solid bedrock and was designed to eliminate vibration during the manufacturing of semiconductor wafers.

The Barrister Place Building downtown and the Phoenix Sky Harbor Center will become the home of a multimillion-dollar data centre and bioscience hub that will link disjointed sectors of the health-care industry to more efficiently care for patients and develop medical breakthroughs. The Phoenix City Council has struck a deal with an organization headed by health-care visionary Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong to bring the supercomputer project to Phoenix.

Next Generation Network Solutions (NGNS), a Bahrain-based provider of customised network solutions, plans to launch a range of products and services to cater to business organisations of any size and background.

Among the offerings will be a state of the art data centre facility, which will ensure world-class platforms for dedicated or shared hosting, enabling safe and secure data storage and backup. NGNS is to further provide business continuity and disaster recovery services, with the capacity to offer remote backup solutions both locally and globally.

IBM has announced that the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee selected IBM software and hardware to automate and consolidate its data centre operations to enable a cloud-based service for delivering SAP-based courses to students.

Telecoms giant BT’s Global Banking and Financial Markets division is expanding its proximity hosting centre presence worldwide with the addition of “virtual proximity” centres - leased space in other vendors’ facilities - that will enable it to provide services in markets and regions where it does not have a direct presence.

Although the supply side of the Australian data centre market is booming with around A$2 billion in investments announced in the first six months of 2011, the demand side is an equally dynamic and transforming market. IDC's recently released survey shows that unlike the colocation, hosting, and cloud service providers building out enterprise-level Greenfield data centres, end user organisations which own and operate a facility are set on a path of retrofitting, renovating, and upgrading.

Canadian cable operator Cogeco announced this morning that it has reached an agreement to buy Quiettouch, which is a provider of outsourced managed IT and infrastructure services, for an undisclosed sum. Quiettouch operates three data centres in Toronto and Vancouver, as well as a fibre network within business areas of downtown Toronto.

Involta has announced plans to build and operate a 20,000 sq ft hardened enterprise data centre in Duluth, Minnesota. While final approvals from local agencies are still pending, design of the facility is currently underway.  The high-security colocation data centre will house mission critical computer systems and related components for healthcare organizations, businesses, government and educational institutions.

TeliaSonera International Carrier has announced that its managed data centre service has been selected by Bitoon Games to provide the gaming platform for BasketDudes, Bitoon's first Free2Play basketball MMO offering, released in June.

Network solutions and connectivity provider SSE Telecoms has announced that they will have a presence at TelecityGroup’s new state-of-the-art Manchester 3 data centre from launch. This will give customers locating infrastructure in the new facility access to a wide range of connectivity and peering options across the UK via SSE Telecoms’ extensive network.

The Benaroya Company, Real Property Investors and O'Keefe companies have joined forces to acquire, develop and operate data centres. The three companies have been partners on a variety of commercial projects over the past 25 years. These projects have included the acquisition and development of data centres, high tech business parks, office buildings, industrial parks and shopping centres.

Active Power, manufacturer of continuous power and infrastructure solutions has received a multimillion dollar order for two PowerHouse systems from one of its strategic IT partners. The deployment will support the IT partner’s containerized datacenters, enabling the end user, a global manufacturer of oil and gas drilling products to quickly add additional capacity. All systems and related equipment will ship in the third quarter of 2011 to the end user’s facility located in the south western US.

Dell said it will keep on exploring acquisitions to widen its lead into areas such as storage and services. According to the sources, Dell is looking beyond its traditional desktop computer market for long-term revenue growth. The company expressed its interest in buying data centres that is contributing half the company’s profit.

zColo, a Zayo Group Company and provider of carrier-neutral, interconnection focused colocation services, and CENX, operator of Carrier Ethernet Exchanges, have announced the execution of an agreement enabling CENX to deploy its platform and offer its Carrier Ethernet Exchange services in Zayo’s data centre facility located at 60 Hudson Street in New York City.

Digital Realty Trust has acquired the non-controlling ownership interest in the entity that owns Datacenter Park Dallas from its joint venture partner for US$53.2 million. In connection with the acquisition, Digital Realty Trust repaid in full the secured debt on the property for approximately US$16.2 million.

Brisbane's Dedicated Servers has bought competitor Burst Networks for an undisclosed sum. Burst, run by a former employee of Dedicated Servers, operates virtual private servers from Dedicated Servers' Brisbane data centre and the Vocus data centre in Sydney.

Dedicated chief Jon Eaves told iTnews that about 70% of Burst's services ran on infrastructure owned by Dedicated. He said about 20 Burst servers would be shifted into Dedicated's data centre in Brisbane. Burst's servers in Sydney would remain in the Vocus Sydney data centre.

Source: IT News