International solutions provider, Logicalis has announced that its high-density data centre and range of Made to Measure cloud services are now natively connected into JANET, the network dedicated to the needs of education and research in the UK. Logicalis' connection to the unique high bandwidth academic network will provide a range of data centre and cloud services, including Infrastructure as a Service, application hosting for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) servicing the education community, through to high density hosting of virtualisation and supercomputing environments.

Host1Plus, a London based international hosting company, has announced a cooperation agreement with one of the best German data centre NewColo in Frankfurt on Main.

Danish telecom operator TDC has said it has signed a cloud computing framework agreement with National Procurement Ltd., a procurement organization for the Danish state and municipalities.

Under the agreement, TDC will deliver IT services worth "several million" Danish kroner during 2011, the company said, adding that it will offer various online services from Microsoft such as Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.

Source: WSJ

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Colt Group has announced that it will appoint Mark Ferrari as Chief Financial Officer with effect from 31 March 2011. Mark Ferrari is currently a Non-Executive Director of Colt and will become an Executive Director on this date. He was initially appointed to the Colt Board on 1 January 2009.

The University of Hertfordshire is recognised by the Data Centre Leaders Award for their innovative Micro-Data Centre.

Omnitech InfoSolutions has acquired Avensus Netherland BV for US$9 million in an earn-out structure.

Avensus Netherland is an European based firm offering managed IT services , security, storage and virtualization solutions to BFSI, healthcare and government sector

Source: Economic Times

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IT system provider Claritas Solutions has created nine jobs as demand for its work increases. The firm, based at Bowcliffe Hall in Bramham, West Yorkshire, has appointed staff in development, service delivery manager, technical support, sales support, customer services and accounts.

The firm recently created a dual data centre for Emerald Group Publishing, the leading independent publisher of global research, providing 24-hour security and support in a contract worth in the region of £1m over five years.

Source: Yorkshire Post

International biotechnology firm Vertex Pharmaceuticals has begun a major overhaul of its IT infrastructure and server virtualization and virtualization management are playing a core role in the development. Speaking to SearchCIO.com, Chris Pray, senior engineer for global information systems at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, said that virtualization is providing the firm with a healthy dose of consolidation, which will help the company save money in the long term.

Voucher and savings firm Park Group is making sure all its IT eggs aren’t in the same basket, after it became the first tenant of AIMES Grid Services’ business continuity centre. The deal will also see Park’s IT systems replicated in a virtual and cloud computing environment hosted at the AIMES secure data centre at Liverpool Innovation Park.

Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, has announced it is to provide a proximity hosting service for financial institutions wanting to connect to the London Stock Exchange Group data centre, strategically located in the heart of the City.

Over three-quarters of chief financial officers are unsure about outsourcing all of their data to the cloud, while 87% would be prepared to externally host their website. A survey of 100 CFOs in medium-sized UK organisations found that concerns around data protection and resilience are the most common factors in holding CFOs back from using third party cloud providers. While almost three-quarters of CFOs said they would like to remove data centres from their organisation's balance sheet, only a quarter of the respondents think this is likely over the next five years.

The i2d consortium, led by Reading-based Logica, has been awarded a ten-year outsourcing contract to deliver the Serious Organised Crime Agency's ICT and related services. Logica will run the contract with its partners in the consortium: QinetiQ, Detica and Cable & Wireless.

The i2d solution aims to provide Soca with a platform for improved collaboration with its partners, exploitation of intelligence and case management, as well as creating efficiencies through consolidation of data centres, networks and desktops.

Source: Inside Media

IT firm Computacenter said full-year profit would be at the top end of market expectations thanks to continued growth in IT services and its customers resuming spending on IT infrastructure. The company, which counts Morrisons Supermarkets and Lloyds Banking Group as customers, said on Tuesday it was also benefiting from cost cuts made in 2009, when the businesses slashed IT upgrades in response to the economic downturn.

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Deputy Premier of China Li Keqiang, have witnessed a £10 million investment by Xiking Culture Media (Beijing) to establish a London based data centre and render farm, aimed at the creative video and TV industries. Xiking says that its investment in Soho Data Holdings will create the first dedicated broadcast data centre in the heart of London’s vibrant media sector.

Dutch telecoms group Royal KPN has said without providing financial details, it has agreed to sell PharmaPartners, part of its IT unit Getronics, to Total Specific Solutions

PharmaPartners develops and markets IT solutions serving pharmacies, general practitioners, medical professionals and patients at regional and national level. These activities are no longer part of the core operations of Getronics, which is primarily focused on workstation management, data centres, hosting services and consultancy, KPN said.

Source: TMCNet

A fire safety contractor caused a complete shutdown at hosting firm Webfusion's data centre today, crippling thousands of websites. "An external third party was carrying out routine maintenance in our data centre, and testing our systems for fire prevention," Webfusion said in a system status update. "Unfortunately, due to human error, our fire prevention systems were in fact triggered.

The firm's £2.5 million Leeds data centre, designed by IBM, opened in February last year. It disappeared from the internet at around 12pm, and customers are still reporting connectivity problems.

BIS Limited, a owner and operator of secure managed London data centres and outsourced managed IT services, has announced the upcoming availability of a high density private cage in their phenomenally popular Docklands' Data centre.

The Catholic Overseas Development Agency (CAFOD) has selected Plan B Disaster Recovery to provide a virtualisation-based business continuity and IT disaster recovery service.

Replacing the Catholic aid agency's previous data backup operation, the fully-managed Plan B DR service will protect critical operating systems, such as email, customer relationship management accounts and databases, said CAFOD.

Source: Computer Weekly

Speaking at the launch of the company's state-of-the art new data centre, SCC Managing Director James Rigby said that with 80% of the nation's business IT systems running obsolete or unsupported software, companies must find new ways of procuring IT systems or risk being left behind by their competitors.

Salary: £70k-£80k b Excellent Benefits

A leading provider of premium network independent data centres in Europe is looking to take on a Project Manager to be based in their New Build team based in Docklands.

The client currently have a number of projects running and need the Project Manager to slot into one of these with the strong possibility of moving on to future projects going forward, so this is potentially a very long contract.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced MarketPrizm has deployed an access node for its trading network and infrastructure service at Equinix’s LD4 London International Business Exchange data centre. MarketPrizm is a comprehensive trading infrastructure for European trading participants.

MarketPrizm was developed to meet the challenges facing the trading world, as companies seek to compete in a market heavily reliant on complex, high-end technology..

Atos Origin, an international IT services company, has announced that it has been awarded a five year contract by Nomura Asset Management UK to provide and manage the systems to support its money market funds. Atos Origin’s solution will further automate Nomura Asset Management U.K management, compliance and operational processing.

Atos Origin will provide Nomura Asset Management U.K. with its, Apollo FIM, a proven, integrated fund management solution that has been successfully implemented by Atos Worldline at a number of European banks.

Source: Web Wire

NTT Europe has announced that it will merge NTT Europe Online, its managed hosting subsidiary, into the company as another step towards becoming an ICT service provider. NTT Europe's core business domain is currently providing ICT infrastructure, including a Global Tier 1 Internet backbone, secure private networks, data centre services, IT managed services and system integration.

Deutsche Börse is preparing to switch its Xetra trading platform to a hi-tech data centre in Frankfurt to better accommodate the algorithmic traders who are changing the way shares are bought and sold.

Deutsche Börse will switch its trading engines to a Frankfurt-based data centre owned by Equinix, a global provider of data centre services. The move will provide faster trading services to high-frequency traders who use computer-based algorithms to power trading strategies.

Source: DW World

Salary: £40000 - £50000 per annum b car / car allowance b package

A Facilities Manager is required for a global leader in technical outsourcing, building efficiency and power solutions. As a Facilities Manager, based in Kent you will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of critical facilities to ensure the operations, maintenance & vendor management standards of the contract are met in a cost effective, safe and efficient manner.

Cork-based Newsweaver which has grown to become one of Europe’s top email newsletter software providers has struck a deal with Cork Internet Exchange to connect to the Cork Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) for faster fibre access.

This connection comes on the back of Newsweaver’s recent move from Bandon which was precipitated by the flooding in November 2009 but was already under consideration as they had outgrown the broadband available in the area. However, MAN connectivity in Cork City has now provided them with 100Mbs via CIX.

Source: Silicon Republic

Interxion, a European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data centre services, has announced that Interactive Data 7ticks, part of Interactive Data Corporation, a leading provider of financial market data, analytics and related solutions, has extended the footprint of its real-time services by locating a Point of Presence in Interxion’s Stockholm data centre.

The POP offers customers low-latency connectivity and proximity hosting both to the Stockholm-based exchanges and between the London and Stockholm financial centres.

Thanks to recent successful bids, BIS are growing. Theya are currently have vacancies in London for five new positions. Come and work for BIS and enjoy all the benefits of working for a fast growing, successful company.

Source: BIS
 

The Office of Public Prosecutions in the Netherlands has outsourced the management of its IT infrastructure to Atos Origin, an international IT services company.

The five-year contract marks the first phase of the OPP's outsourcing strategy and includes the management of around 6,500 work stations (fixed and mobile), office automation, VOIP and hosting services.

Source: Consultant News

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Peter Hannaford, former Vice President of Data Centers and Alliances for APC by Schneider Electric, EMEA, has announced the launch of Datacenterpeople, a new specialist recruitment company exclusively for the data centre industry.

A new EU data centre project aims to create cloud infrastructure for data-intensive computing environments, facilitating decision making and collaboration across the continent. Named Dicode, the initiative brings together high-performance computing capabilities and technologies designed for processing significant amounts of data, with academics from the UK, Germany, Greece and Spain partnering on the delivery of the scheme.

Shetland is to experience an IT revolution later this year work on laying a superfast cable connecting the isles to the rest of the world got under way on Wednesday. The £1.3 million project, funded by the Shetland Islands Council with help from Europe, will give the islands 21st century style telecommunications by linking to the fibre optic cable that connects neighbouring Faroe Islands with Scotland.

Thrive Homes has selected Sovereign Business Integration to deliver fully outsourced IT services and support, in an initial contract to 31 March 2012.

The new arrangement sees Sovereign work closely with the housing association to provide IT helpdesk support for Thrive Homes staff, server and network management, systems administration on business applications and project management for the delivery of key IT and business improvement projects.

Source: 24dash

Portuguese IT services provider Decsis and the local unit of US Hewlett-Packard Company will invest €2 million (US$2.7 million) in a data centre in Evora, southern Portugal. The construction works on the facility are expected to be completed in April, the municipality of Evora said.

The centre is located in an industrial and technological park. The complex will also host the future science and technology centre of Alentejo, PCTA, which involves investments of €41.8 million and is co-financed by the European Union.

Source: Trading Markets

A Cumbrian businessman is bringing 100mb broadband to Carlisle as he prepares to do battle with multinationals like BT for the contract to provide superfast broadband across the county. The county council is preparing to finalise details of a tender process after Cumbria was selected as one of four pilot areas to benefit from a £10 million broadband subsidy.

David Durnford, chief executive of Smallword Cable, said: "We will be putting a bid in and I believe we have a good chance of winning the contract." The company has a large data centre in Kingstown, Carlisle.

The EU’s ‘cyber security’ Agency ENISA has launched a new report on Govermental Cloud Computing.

The report is targeted at senior managers of public bodies who have to make a security and resilience decision about how to ‘go cloud’, if at all. The main goal of the report is to support governmental bodies in taking informed risk based decisions regarding security of data, resilience of service and legal compliance on their way to the cloud. It highlights also security and resilience pros and cons of community, private and public cloud computing services for public bodies.

A double jobs boost for Scotland by North American technology giants Dell and Microsoft signals a revival in fortunes this year for those who supply IT services and products. David Mitchell, a senior vice-president with Datamonitor, gave an upbeat analysis for 2011 to members of ScotlandIS, the country's trade body for software, IT and creative technology businesses.

ATM S.A., a Polish data centre provider has signed a Reseller Agreement for Telehouse.Poland Colocation Services with Interoute, an owner and operator of one of Europe’s largest next generation networks. Under the agreement Interoute will provide colocation services in Telehouse.Poland - Warsaw based data centre in Poland.

The newly signed agreement enables Interoute to offer its customers colocation services in Telehouse.Poland, one of the biggest data centre located in Warsaw.

Source: PR Log

UK broadcaster BSkyB is reportedly in acquisition talks with The Cloud, a UK public WiFI network that supplies wireless internet services in over 22,000 European locations. BSkyB recently sold Easynet, focussing its efforts within its natural consumer space, so talks of a move back into networks may come as a surprise to many.

The Carbon Trust has launched a data centre design service, which it claims can reduce energy costs by up to 70%. Hugh Jones, solutions director at the Carbon Trust, said: “Along with the ever increasing demand for storage comes an ever increasing demand for energy to power and cool UK data centres. Low carbon design in new build and refurbishment projects has the potential to unlock hundreds of millions of pounds in energy bills each year.

Web hosting provider PEER 1 Hosting has announced that it had begun building out a 50,000 sq ft green data centre in Portsmouth, UK. The facility is designed according to the company’s “POD” plan, which enables it to build out stages as demand increases. The first of four PODs is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2011, with an initial cost of almost C$16 million.

Most organisations face a relatively simple choice when it comes to the data centre: either build and run their own facilities or trust a third-party provider to host, maintain and manage either some, or all, of the necessary servers, network and storage infrastructure on their behalf.

A group of seven domestic Internet service providers, or ISPs, have joined forces to turn Istanbul into a regional Internet peering hub, the general manager of Koç.net, a leading Internet company, has said. Leading Turkish ISPs Borusan Telekom, Do%9fan Telekom, Global leti%9fim, Grid Telekom, Koç.net, Superonline and Turknet launched the country’s first Internet Network Infrastructure Platform.

Turkish investors and content providers mostly use either the Frankfurt Internet Exchange Point or London Internet Exchange, Koc.net’s Mehmet Ali Akarca told journalists

HMRC’s Aspire IT outsourcing contract with Capgemini is beginning to deliver savings to HMRC and is likely to generate another £1.2billion in savings by 2017, a senior official claimed this week. HMRC deputy chief information officer Mark Hall revealed the background economics of the 10 year Aspire contract at the Government ICT 2011 conference in London.

Emerson Network Power has announced that leading IT services company Fujitsu has significantly improved its data centre reliability and efficiency. Using Emerson Network Power’s Aperture software solutions, part of the company’s data centre infrastructure management solutions portfolio, Fujitsu increased the overall reliability, availability, and efficiency of its data centre systems.

The Belgian KBC Group is set to open a twin data centre near Budapest in a bid to cut costs in Central Europe, said K&H, the Hungarian unit of KBC.

The centre will become operational in the coming months and will generate recurrent annual cost savings of €10 million. Since 2007 KBC has invested €100 million on its new Hungarian data centre, which will manage the network infrastructure and customer data storage for KBC companies in Central and Eastern Europe.

Source: Budapest Business Journal

Atos Origin, an international IT services company, and Rexel, a global leader in the distribution of electrical supplies, have announced the signing of an IT infrastructure outsourcing contract lasting 5 years.

IT services provider Redstone plc has won a contract to provide services on behalf of County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. Redstone will update the IT infrastructure across the trust in a project expected to take up to 18 months, followed by a support services agreement lasting five years.

The company has been appointed jointly with Insight Direct (UK) Limited, which will front the contract as prime contractor, with Redstone as sole sub-contractor.

Source: Stock Market Wire

GTS Central, an infrastructure-based telecommunications operator and provider of data centre services in Central and Eastern Europe, has acquired Sitel data centre which is is located in Prague and has 2,270 sq m of customer floor space with an additional 700 sq m available for expansion.

In the summer of 2010, GTS Polish data centres were expanded by 500 s q m and an additional 700 sq m data centre was opened in Prague.

Source: CBR

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TelecityGroup has been named winner of the ‘Best Data Centre Innovation’ category at the Greenbang Sustainability Awards 2010 for its newest Paris data centre, Condorcet.

The Greenbang Sustainability Awards recognise top sustainability efforts from businesses working to create a low-carbon future. The ‘Best Data Centre Innovation’ category recognises companies that have shown innovative and industry leading approaches to energy efficient data centre design, and demonstrated quantifiable results in the relevant areas such as carbon emissions.

The third quarter of 2010 in the European Carrier Neutral Hotel market has seen relatively subdued levels of activity, with fewer transactions completed than earlier in the year. Both the Retail and Wholesale colocation sectors have experienced a dip in levels of space transacted, although a broader view should recognise that the Retail colocation sector has again seen more activity. The sector polarisation between Retail and Wholesale, commented upon in Quarter 2, is still much in evidence and is expected to remain during Quarter 4.

Staffordshire County Council is to implement one of the country's first Public Sector Networks in a £23 million contract ct with communications provider Kcom. The network will connect around 50,000 devices and will be accessed by around 200 council sites and 400 schools. It will also connect all borough and district councils in Staffordshire and South Staffordshire Health authority.

A continuing stream of outsourcing service contracts have helped Mitie stay on course for continued growth. In a trading update, the company says that it has made good progress in the past four months and expects its results for its financial year to 31 March 2011 to be in line with management's expectations.

Amongst a number of new contracts announced was a contract to design and develop a data centre that will be used by a major bank. The 16-month contract started this month and has an estimated value of £34 million.

Source: Construction Index