NTT Communications and Gyron Internet have announced that NTT Com has acquired 85% of Gyron, a leading provider of data center services in the United Kingdom. NTT Com is further subscribing for additional equity in Gyron to provide capital for planned expansion projects.

Internet Service Provider Ask4 is moving into a major new market after launching a £1.5 million, state-of-the-art data centre in Sheffield’s Lower Don Valley.

The company, already hailed as the UK’s leading supplier of fibre optic broadband services for student accommodation, originally intended to use the custom-built data centre, in Brompton Road, Attercliffe, solely for itself. Now it has opened the centre up so that other companies can use it to host their own IT services and safeguard their data.

Data centre and connectivity services provider C4L has announced the opening of its newly upgraded Bournemouth data centre. The site provides 5,000 sq ft of space, able to house 180 racks of IT equipment. The data centre itself is certified as being 100% powered by green energy, as well as using additional techniques to further reduce its energy usage. As a result, C4L can ascertain that its data centre is producing the lowest possible amount of carbon emissions as well as providing IT resources for potentially hundreds of businesses.

Extreme Networks, has announced that the London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of the world's leading exchange points for Internet traffic, has become one of the first organizations to purchase the BlackDiamond X8 switch to help meet growing network data traffic.

UK hospital operator Nuffield Health is implementing a private cloud architecture as part of an ongoing strategy to consolidate and centralise its IT services. The charity, which operates 31 private hospitals around the UK, has been on an "infrastructure journey" in the last 12 months, interim enterprise architect Mike Rowland told Information Age, moving from decentralised, physical hardware to central, virtualised services.

Data centre operator Equinix is expanding in the right locations in Europe. So says Steve Smith, chief executive of data centre operator Equinix. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company in May acquired Germany's Ancotel for about US$140 million, gaining assets in financial hub Frankfurt. It's also building its fifth data centre in Zurich, and expanding in Amsterdam and Paris.

Revenue from server sales declined by about 12% year-on-year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the first quarter of 2012, as vendors continue to suffer from a slowdown in server spending, according to market research company IDC.

This was the second consecutive quarter of annual revenue declines, and the first double-digit decrease since the third quarter of 2009. Difficult market conditions compounded the current slowdown in server spending, IDC said. Revenue totalled US$3.1 billion, compared to US$3.5 billion during the first quarter last year.

GPs and clinicians treating patients in and around West Yorkshire will soon have quicker access to information at their surgeries and health clinics thanks to a new fibre-optic network from Virgin Media Business. The Health Informatics Service (THIS), the largest provider of IT services to the healthcare and social care sectors, is leading the project which is aimed at reducing the numbers of unnecessary journeys to hospital by revolutionising information sharing.

The UK is home to one of the biggest datacentre markets in the world – this year alone £2.19 billion will be invested in British facilities. But with so much at stake, what are the risks and wider implications?

 Colt, Europe’s leading information platform, has announced the appointment of Victor Smith as Product Director at Colt Data Centre Services. In this new role, Victor will be responsible for strengthening Colt’s data centre product and services strategy as Colt extends their leadership in designing and deploying scalable data centres globally.

Increasing demand for Getmapping data services has led to a move to a new data centre. The award winning 4D Data Centre not only supports greater performance but also has better green credentials. The latter has become an increasing concern for businesses and other organisations using online services, applications and data. As well as its own extensive aerial photography archive Getmapping hosts its own internet mapping applications and a complete range of Ordnance Survey professional mapping products together with the latest OS OpenData.

Interoute, owner operator of Europe's largest cloud services platform, has announced expansion of its ISO 27001 accredited Enterprise Security Management System to its London data centre operations. 

Netwise Hosting have launched an innovative new approach to colocation pricing, with their Colocation Calculator - a real-time quotation service. Users of the Netwise Hosting website can now get live pricing for server colocation deployments without the need for lengthy discussions with hosting professionals.

Building on a string of high-profile customer wins and key strategic partnerships, Watchitoo is expanding its global presence beginning with a new data centre and distribution channel in the UK. Watchitoo uniquely combines video chat, HD streaming and collaboration software on a SaaS platform for education, entertainment and business customers in the United States and, increasingly, throughout the world.

The Olympic Park could become home to a massive data centre as part of a government consolidation project, which could save taxpayers millions by providing a shared service for all 33 London boroughs.

A £1 million investment in the latest technology has sparked a surge in business for a Hampshire IT specialist which is now looking for 17 new staff to handle demand. Fareham-based Taylor Made Computer Solutions is looking to take on the new IT engineers as clients clamour to use its new high security data centre as a safe alternative to cloud computing. The new faces will follow 25 starters taken on since January. The firm now employs 120 staff. 

Organisations are taking huge risks on a daily basis and while digital security is being addressed, other vital areas are causing concern. This is the headline finding from new research by The Bunker, provider of Ultra Secure Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Colocation, and Outsourced IT services from within Europe's most secure data centres, into the views of senior IT professionals in UK organisations towards security, risk and compliance.

SGI has announced that Finland's CSC -  IT Center for Science Ltd. (CSC) has selected SGI ICE Cube modular data centre technology for a new green data centre in
Kajaani, Northern Finland. Valued at €2.6 million, the three year deal will see a brownfield site transformed to meet CSC's expanding demand for HPC capacity.

Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest cloud services platform, has launched a self-service disaster recovery and backup service as part of its Virtual Data Centre  offering, built into its pan European network and Data Centre platform. The disaster recovery and local backup capabilities are available to organisations that provision their on-demand computing, needs via Interoute’s VDC and are looking to build a resilient architecture across multiple geographically separated locations.

Technology business Onyx Group is targeting further expansion following the opening of a data centre in South Yorkshire. Onyx chief executive Neil Stephenson told Insider that companies were moving their IT into data centres, as they seek to future proof their systems. "People are increasingly moving IT off-site and into data centres because they understand that IT isn’t something that you do in-house. It is critical to your business. "There is a trickle effect. There is a lot of old kit out there that is starting to let companies down.

Wireless broadband provider Metronet is collaborating with LINX and other major internet firms to back the launch of the UK's newest internet exchange point (IXP), IX Manchester.

Researchers at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva are being held back from adopting cloud computing on any significant scale due to the delay in establishing a European regulatory framework for data protection. Speaking at the Cloud Computing World Forum in London recently, Bob Jones, head of CERN openlab, said that the European Commission's failure to push through clear guidelines for data protection in the cloud was hindering uptake within the scientific community.

Cumbria County Council has rejected bids from BT and Fujitsu to provide its superfast broadband roll-out across the region. The central government funded project planned to give 90% of homes in Cumbria a minimum of 25Mbps broadband speed by 2015. Despite the tech giants being the final two in the process for the £40 million contract, Cumbria CC has decided that neither bid is suitable.

The Government Procurement Service has announced a forthcoming procurement framework that will allow all government departments to buy a vast range of IT services. The procurement framework has an estimated total value of £1 billion and will be available for use by every department of government, including ministries, local authorities, the NHS and the BBC.

Cloudreach, a fast growth cloud computing consultancy, has announced it will make the benefits of Google Apps and Amazon Web Services more accessible to Scottish businesses. As part of its rapid expansion, which saw the company grow 550 per cent in 2011, Cloudreach has opened an office in Edinburgh making it the only accredited provider of Google Apps and AWS in Scotland.

City Lifeline, the Central London independent colocation data centre, has been chosen by Japanese information technology systems integrator IIJ Exlayer to support the company’s global expansion into the European market. 

IBM has announced the opening of 10 new branch offices across Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as part of a major initiative to capture regional business growth and increase its presence in the fastest growing markets in the world.

Global facility services provider OCS has completed the first phase of a five-year IT infrastructure overhaul through outsourcing. Employing over 65,000 people worldwide and headquartered in the UK, OCS' portfolio spans a broad range of services including engineering, security, catering and horticulture.

Verne Global, an innovative, UK-based developer of power conscious data centre campuses, has announced that Colt, the information delivery platform for European businesses, has signed an agreement for data centre capacity, powered by 100% renewable sources, at its Keflavik data centre campus. By establishing a presence within Verne Global's Icelandic data centre, Colt is leveraging long term fixed price power agreements and enhancing its portfolio with 100% carbon free data centre services.

Gloucestershire Constabulary has implemented a new virtualised data centre to help increase the reliability of its network system whilst attempting to minimise costs. The constabulary has claimed to have saved up to 75% on the hardware and warranty costs associated with the data centre refresh, by reducing 250 physical devices to 10 and virtualising 25 servers hosted on one blade.

Following a complete redesign and expansion, BT has re-opened its data centre in Nieuwegein. BT has done so in response to increased customer demand for hosted and managed ICT services. The new location complements BT's existing data centres in Amsterdam, Brussels and Nieuwegein.

Power and automation technology company ABB and Tieto, the IT service company in Northern Europe, have launched a feasibility study for the construction of a solar power plant at Tieto's data centre in Espoo, southern Finland. Experience has shown that solar power production in Finland has good potential. For example, solar panels can produce more power annually in southern Finland than in northern Germany of southern England.

Data centre operator, Next Generation Data has announced the appointment of Steve Davis as Sales Director. He has specific responsibility for leading a new UK and international channel sales initiative for attracting cloud service provider and IT hosting organisations into NGD Europe, the company’s mega data centre facility in South Wales.

A new system created by a French energy firm heats about 6 million square feet of office space, creating no emissions in the process. The Val d'Europe, a business park serving Disneyland Paris, reuses the heat from a nearby data centre’s air-conditioning units. Heat exchangers capture the excess energy and use it to heat water to 131 degrees Fahrenheit (55 degrees Celsius). The data centre pipes the hot water to a central plant, which distributes it to the business park.

Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, has announced it is making a thousand square metres of modular data centre space available in its flagship Paris carrier neutral facility in France. The modules which were constructed in the UK were shipped a thousand kilometres across the English channel and then by road to its location south of Paris.

Belgian startup Cluttr has developed software and a service that takes a deep dive into a data centre’s energy use and makes it a whole lot smarter. The start-up, founded by entrepreneur Frederik Van Hecke when he was studying at the Ghent University, audits an existing facility, provides its Power Waste Reduction (PWR) suite of software, and monitors everything to make sure the facility is reducing its energy use.

Security specialist Netwatch has been appointed to provide security solutions for the new purpose-built North London data centre LDeX1. It is the new 22,000 sq ft data centre facility of the London Data Exchange (LDeX), which provides colocation services to organisations looking to outsource their server and telecommunications equipment to a specialist data centre provider.

ebrc, Luxembourg’s leading provider of highly secure cloud, managed ICT and data centre services has won the “European Award for Cloud Services”, presented at the 5th Annual Data Centres Europe Awards in the Merchant Taylors Hall in London. Hosted by consulting firm BroadGroup, the prestigious awards recognise the leading players in the European data centre and cloud sectors and are an international benchmark reference in the ICT industry.

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, will warn IT suppliers that spending controls will be a “permanent way of life” and that poorly performing companies will find it difficult to win new government contracts. In a move to streamline the public sector, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude announced the meeting with the top 22 public sector suppliers to outline the new drive to streamline and record the contractor’s performance. Those that fail to hit the required level of performance will be banned from supplying to the Government.