Siemens Energy has acquired a minority stake in England's Marine Current Turbines, a pioneer in the design and development of tidal current energy turbines. Siemens acquired a stake of just below 10% in the Bristol-based company. "With this investment in an early stage company we're securing access to an innovative technology in the field of renewables," said Rene Umlauft, CEO of the Renewable Energy Division of Siemens Energy. "As one of the technology leaders in ocean power, Marine Current Turbines is a suitable partner for us to enter the promising ocean power market."

Many IT leaders intend to make high-tech purchases and technology projects a priority in the coming months as plans that had been put on hold during the downturn are prepped for takeoff in 2010.

Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a non-profit organisation that provides services to 56 electric utilities and related organizations in nine states, has announced it will build a new corporate headquarters in Little Rock. SPP will invest US$62 million in the facility and is finalising the purchase of 20 acres off Chenal Parkway. SPP will consolidate its existing three locations in central Arkansas to the new campus.

The first phase of adapt's roll-out became operational earlier this year and adapt's data centre and network build is now complete and is available to customers for immediate occupancy.

To complement adapt's other core data centre sites in London City and Docklands, the data centre's location on the M25 periphery and less than 70 fibre KM from central London makes this site an ideal option for split sites solutions, SAN to SAN, and high availability services between London City data centre sites.

New York City IT Commissioner Carole Wallace Post is wasting little time putting her stamp on the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) and the city's technology operations.

Long lead times cost time and money, but at Welwyn DC new tenants can start fitting out immediately and be fully operational in six months. Over 8,000 m2 of shell space is available now, with the opportunity to take the space in a variety of configurations from a powered shell to fully-fitted data halls. The space is available either as a whole or in part to a minimum net data hall size of circa 1,000 m2. Additional office space and meeting rooms are provided on-site together with car parking.

Internap Network Services has reported fourth quarter and full-year 2009 financial results. Revenue for the full-year 2009 increased US$2.3 million over 2008 to US$256.3 million. Higher data centre services revenue in 2009 offset a decline in IP services revenue over the same period.

The government in partnership with the private sector is planning to set up a Neutral National Data Center that will provide services to both the public and the private sector. Information and communication PS Bitange Ndemo says the data centre will ensure rapid distribution of accurate information to Kenyans.

As Kenya readies itself to achieve its Vision 2030 goals and with the business processing outsourcing considered one of its key drivers, the realization of a central data centre has spurred the government to action.

Source: KBC

Tencent Holdings, a leading provider of Internet and mobile and telecom value-added services in China, started building a data storage centre in the Tianjin Binhai New Area, sources reported.

With an initial investment of RMB 600 million, the project is expected to be completed this year. The data centre will be capable of providing services to 400 million end-users. The project will provide sufficient data storage support for the North China market, said Tencent.

Source: China Knowledge

Ethernet switching company Force10 Networks this week filed for a US$144 million IPO. The amount of shares and the price were not disclosed. Lead managers in the public offering are JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Barclays Capital. It will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FTEN.”

The company booked US$138.4 million in revenue in 2009 but has been losing money and may never turn a profit, according to Force10’s S-1 filing with the SEC. The company lost US$76 million in 2009 and US$55 million in 2008.

Source: Network World

Streamlined IT and outsourcing played a central role in the modernisation of Aviva, the insurance firm said in its results. The company's business simplification drive started two years ago and has technology at its heart. It involved a £700 million data centre services deal with HP Business Services last year that has helped the company refocus on business-critical areas and reduce IT spending.

Lawmakers hope to spark a renewed building boom in Eastern Washington by giving technology companies a pass on taxes when they build vast data centres full of computer services, and Pierce County wants a piece of the action.

Google and the state of North Carolina can agree on tax incentives for the construction of an Internet data centre without interference from taxpayers, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled. The trial court said the taxpayers lack standing to pursue constitutional claims of unfair taxation, and Judge Sam Ervin IV affirmed the decision on appeal.

Telecom company Tata Communications has announced record growth for business volumes despite the recession and continued investments in global infrastructure, services and emerging market initiatives.

Ordnance Survey and Land Registry have opened a shared data centre, said to be the first of its kind. The official opening means that Ordnance Survey and Land Registry are two of the first government organisations to embrace the Government Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategy and follow the programme of shared data centres.

NASA has recently announced via one of its websites that it is restrategizing its plans to acquire an enterprise data centre.

NASA decided to postpone the acquisition after realizing that the NASA Enterprise Data Center program did not adhere to its enterprise needs. The agency's needs shifted after recent leadership changes and new requirements from the Office of Management and Budget were introduced in relation to cloud computing, greening information technology, virtualization, and federal data center leadership.
 

Source: The WHIR

Event organizer BroadGroup has announced that industry leaders in the European data centre sector will gather at the sixth annual Data Centres Europe Conference and Awards (www.datacentres.com/dce), held April 22 to 23 at Sophia Antipolis near Nice, France.

HITT Contracting has been awarded a contract for the design and construction of a new Tier III data centre to be located at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, Colorado. The team, led by HITT, includes Wisnewski Blair & Associates for Architecture; KTA Group for Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineering; Woods Peacock for Structural Engineering; Kimley-Horn and Associates for Civil Engineering; and Schmid & Associates for Fire Protection Engineering.

Tata Communications plans to invest US$ 2 billion in the Middle East market in two years, including investment in telecom infrastructure development and management services, disclosed Srinath Narasimhan, managing director and chief executive officer of the telecom operator.

It aims to build up another local market outside India and South Africa, said Tata Communications chief operating officer Vinod Kumar, adding that Southeast Asia and Africa will be likely to achieve the goal.

 Source: Trading Markets

Data centre staff costs are expected to rise by 10% in large businesses, according to a study from analyst IDC. The IDC survey of 300 large European businesses found that one in four organisations were managing their servers and storage manually, leading to much higher costs compared with organisations that used some tools.

Only 14% of organisations had a fully integrated management framework. The research found that only 30% of companies saw data centre operational cost as a priority, with 25% concerned specifically about software licence costs.

These complex hosting contracts, with both public and private sector organisations, reflect the emerging and fast growing trend among companies to outsource all or part of their IT services to the cloud. Examples of cloud managed service contracts won recently include a three year deal to host and manage the web and email platforms for Doctors.net.uk. This is the largest, most active online medical network in the U.K., currently supporting 160,000 registered doctors,

A national survey of over 100 senior IT professionals found that there are three factors driving demand in the UK data centre market sector - security, power and price. The survey, conducted by Telehouse, also showed that most organisations questioned were looking to expand their data centre requirements adding to the current capacity crunch and putting more pressure on UK data centre providers.

Global IT spending will rise in 2010 but the majority of IT budgets will remain flat, according to Ovum. The analysts said that some chief information officers will see increases in budgets of between one and five per cent, but these figures did not represent a recovery, just an improvement on the bare minimum.

"Realistically, the numbers are more likely to reflect the effect of previously deep budget cuts during 2008 and the first half of 2009, which left many IT departments operating at 'bare-bones' capacity," said Ovum's Rhonda Ascierto.

Tift Regional Medical Center will soon break ground on a US$9.3 million data centre to house patient records and information technology. The 15,000 sq ft facility will include areas for computer servers, office space a training centre and utility systems.

Officials expect to add 10 jobs to information technology support over the next 18 months. The new centre should be complete by summer 2011.

Source: WALB

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IT management software firm CA has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Nimsoft in an all-cash transaction valued at US$350 million, in a move to expand its presence in emerging enterprise and managed service providers markets.

Nimsoft has approximately 800 customers, including nearly 300 MSPs and operates primarily in the US and Europe. It provides unified monitoring offerings for virtualised data centres, hosted and managed services, cloud platforms and SaaS resources.

Source: CBR

An AU$100 million data centre is planned for the former Mitsubishi site at Tonsley Park. Adelaide IT entrepreneur Marty Gauvin plans to build the state's largest data centre on the site, and is in negotiations with the State Government over leasing a 4,000 sq m plot.

Microsoft has revealed plans to lower its data centre budget from US$500 million per project to US$250 million or less. Kevin Timmons, head of Microsoft's data centre operations team, says the company is currently on track to "reduce costs by 50% or more in the next-generation builds".

SunGard has acquired 365 Hosting Limited, a Dublin, Ireland-based cloud computing and data centre services company. The acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard's results.

Privately-owned Hosting 365 has been providing hosted services since 2001 and operates from two secure data centres in the Dublin area to help ensure the resilience of its solutions. It has pioneered the use of Web-based tools to facilitate customer self-service across all aspects of the service procurement process.

Guernsey’s economy could receive a massive boost after plans for a £250 million Technology park were unveiled. The Guernsey Technology Park, at the Saltpans, has been described as a ‘Rolls-Royce’ development that could attract global companies from a range of industries. The Long Port Group bought the 16.5-acre site in April 2008 for £7.3 million. and has now been given planning permission in principle.

Trading firms and marketplace operators are wasting money on the big “monolithic” data centres they’re building, as electronic networks proliferate, market data explodes and volumes surge? That’s the contention of Ronald H. Bowman Jr., author of “The Green Guide to Power: Thinking Outside the Grid” and “Business Continuity Planning for Data Centers and Systems: A Strategic Implementation Guide.”

Wirral Council is to invest £12 million in upgrading its broadband capability in a bid to attract data centre developers and research and development occupiers. The work will take three years to carry out. Jim Wilkie, deputy chief executive or Wirral Council, says that local authorities must find alternative ways to make occupiers commit to their regions in the absence of speculative development.

RCN Metro Optical Networks will design, build and operate an open network to be owned by OpenCape and financed in part by the broadband stimulus. The NTIA, as part of the federal government’s broadband stimulus program, awarded OpenCape a US$32 million grant for the 350-mile network. The network, which will serve as the region’s broadband backbone, will span from the South Coast of Massachusetts onto Cape Cod and the Islands.

The concept that multiple data centre networks can be made more efficient by converging them into one system using Data Centre Bridging technology is flawed, according to analyst Gartner. In a recent report, “Myth: A Single FCoE Data Center Network = Fewer Ports, Less Complexity and Lower Costs”, the analyst stated that converged data centre networks actually require more power and cooling and are more complex to manage than two well-designed separate networks.

Equinix has announced that its wholly-owned Asia-Pacific subsidiaries in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore have appointed DBS Bank Ltd, ING Bank N.V., Singapore Branch, The Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. and GE Commercial Finance (Hong Kong) Ltd. to underwrite and arrange an approximate US$170 million Multicurrency Syndicated Term Loan Facility.

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has invested £6 million in communications and data technology services provider, ControlCircle. This round marks the first institutional investment for the London-based company. The new capital will be used to expand the business into new markets.

ControlCircle manages data centres and internet connections for websites like betfair, Sega, KPMG, Nokia, and rightmove.co.uk.

Source: Unquote

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The South African Post Office is awaiting ministerial approval to issue tenders worth a total of R250 million to begin the second phase of its IT upgrade plan, said group CFO Nick Buick.

Telus has said it will spend C$650 million this year to extend the reach and speed of its wireline and wireless broadband services in the western Canadian province of Alberta.It will also expand its wireless broadband network throughout the province, building on its November launch of a national high-speed network.

Canada's telecoms industry is in the midst of a shake-up as new wireless entrants make their way to market. Telus said in February that new rivals have been slow to launch and are not expected to be a meaningful factor for the first half of 2010.

German industrial conglomerate Siemens has announced it will eliminate 4,200 jobs worldwide in its information technology services unit, as part of a reorganization of the business towards the "promising" solutions areas. The IT business currently employs 35,000 globally. By 2011, about 4,200 of those jobs will be cut. Roughly 2,000 of the job losses will be in Germany, mostly at major company locations such as Munich, Paderborn and the Nuremberg/Erlangen metropolitan area.

PEER 1 Network Enterprises has announced it has acquired Atlanta based VIA Net.Works USA, a privately held subsidiary of Clara.Net Holdings, in an all-cash transaction. Financial terms were not disclosed.

VIA Networks USA is a provider of primarily dedicated and managed hosting solutions built around the Microsoft platform for small and medium sized businesses. During calendar year 2009, VIA Networks USA generated approximately US$2 million in revenue and an operating loss for the year.

Source: CNW

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has owned up to increasing its IT development budget by almost a third over the course of a year. The department admitted in a written answer to parliament that it had spent £99 million more on information technology advancement in 2008-09 than in the previous financial year.

However, a DWP spokesman said: "We have made huge efficiency savings on IT since 2004, reducing total costs from £1.071 billion to £987 million in 2008-09 and we expect these reductions to continue."

Source: QAS

Richardson could give US$5 million in incentives to a new data centre that is expected to add US$160 million to the city's tax rolls. The City Council will vote tonight on a tax-increment financing grant for Datacenter Park. It is a joint venture between developer Tod Fobare and San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust.

A volcano that has been dormant for almost 200 years has erupted in Iceland. Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland's civil protection agency said on Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The last time the volcano erupted was in the 1820s.

Multnomah County, incorporated in 1854, covers approximately 466 square miles. It’s the smallest Oregon county in area, but the largest in population. The Multnomah County data centre is in the basement of the Penumbra Kelly Building at 4747 E. Burnside St. in Portland. The facility is approximately 2,800 sq ft and houses US$2.5 million to US$3 million of critical telecommunications and computing infrastructure that supports the county’s networks and business applications.

The Richardson City Council has approved a deal landing one of the largest data centres in the nation. Datacenter Park will be built at the corner of Alma Road and Collins Boulevard. On Monday night, the City Council unanimously approved a Tax Increment Financing grant of US$5 million.

Canadian web hosting provider iWeb has said that it had completed a financing agreement with Goldman Sachs worth US$3 Million.

The National Security Agency's plan to build a massive data centre for intelligence analysis has drawn interest from some of the country's largest construction firms. More than a dozen contractor teams have announced they are gearing up to submit bids on the US$1.7 billion data centre.

The players include Salt Lake City-based Jacobsen Construction, which is teaming up with New York-based Turner Construction and Kiewit of Omaha, Nebraska.

Source: The Spectrum

Hushed about the identity of a prospective new business, Garner officials nevertheless have approved a developer’s request to move ahead with a 95,534sq ft commercial building on Waterfield Drive, - that will reportedly house a data centre for financial services firm Fidelity Investments - in Greenfield South Business Park.

Switch & Data Facilities and Equinix need more time to finish their US$689 million merger. Both companies filed an amendment to their merger plan giving both sides until April 21 to finish the acquisition, moved from the original March 21 deadline.

Carrier-neutral data centre operator Teraco plans to expand its new Johannesburg facility to 1,250 sq m because of growing demand. At the same time, it is about to begin work on its first data centre in Durban. The company is putting the final touches on its Johannesburg facility, which is located near OR Tambo International airport, ahead of an official launch shortly. The expansion comes on top of Teraco’s construction of a second data centre in Cape Town - in Pinelands - to complement its existing (and first) facility in Rondebosch.

CSF Group, the Malaysian data centre company, is set to become Aim’s largest technology listing in more than a year on Monday after raising more than £28 million in a new share issue. The group will be valued at £88 million when it debuts at 55p per share. The funds, equivalent to a third of its equity, will allow it to start building the largest high-end data centre in south-east Asia and expand into neighbouring countries.

This article outlines UK Government department policies on IT spending in respect of the recent budget.

Singapore’s largest data centre, owned by listed Japan Land, is at risk of being liquidated as its main contractor is putting the centre under receivership over delayed progress payments. Jurong Data Centre Development (JDD) is unable to repay the debts mainly because a plan to bring in an investor has hit a snag. ConnectedPlanet Holding, which agreed last November to acquire an 85% stake in JDD from Japan Land for US$45.5 million, has repeatedly delayed completion of the acquisition, which was scheduled to take place on Jan 28, Japan Land said.

United Parcel Service will make about US$1 billion in technology investments this year to improve the efficiency of its operations, with the goal of cutting billions more from its costs over the long term, company executives have said. One of its main goals is to improve the speed and efficiency of its delivery operations. To achieve that, UPS is equipping its vans with sensors that allow it to collect data about things like fuel consumption, chosen routes and how much time its engines spend idling,.

Global, on-demand virtual data centre and hosting services provider SoftLayer Technologies, has been given a US$10 million in new investment, bringing its total of funds available under its senior notes facility to US$30 million, which will be used to fund the company's continued growth. Facilitated by investment banking firm DH Capital, the additional financial commitments came from a group of private investors organised, and DH Capital served as exclusive financial advisor to SoftLayer on the transaction.

T-Hrvatski Telekom, a Croatian telecommunications provider, has signed a Share Sale and Transfer Agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Combis, usluge integracija informatikih tehnologija, d.o.o. The purchase price is between €25.5 million - €31.5 million) depending on achievement of business targets for 2010 and 2011.

Combis is a leading IT systems integrator in Croatia’s fragmented IT market. The acquisition is part of T-HT’s strategy to become a significant provider of information and communications technology and services.

Virtual hosting firm Dediserve has secured €1 million cash injection to fund an aggressive expansion plan for 2010 that will include local and European acquisitions as well as opening sites in additional data centres and growing its headcount. With a growing base of international customers, Dediserve is planning to open up sites in data centres in the USA and UK as well as in Dublin in the second quarter of this year.

Gov. Christine Gregoire has enacted a law to help spur data centre construction in rural counties by offering temporary tax breaks on server equipment. “The Port of Quincy is very excited about this new law as it will help attract more development and expansion of data centres in rural areas of Washington, such as Quincy,” stated Curt Morris, port chairman.

“This is one bill that will literally save jobs, and at a time when unemployment is at 13.6% in Grant County, we need all the jobs we can get,” commented local legislator Rep. Bill Hinkle.

TELEHOUSE America, the provider of dedicated data centres, international Internet exchanges and managed IT services, has announced its new suite of solutions specifically packaged for online gaming companies and operators. In the US, the amount of online play is growing 10 times as fast as the overall US Internet population, with nearly one of every two users getting in the game. This growth is driving gaming companies to reassess their technical requirements and seek access to Internet backbone providers, traditionally housed in carrier-grade data centre and colocation facilities.

The value added services of Ufone are still affected all over the country and would take time to be fully resumed as fire broke out in one of the Ufone data centres. However, the SMS services and voice message service have been made fully operational, while the Blackberry service has also been restored, the official spokesperson of Ufone Moazzam Ali Khan told The Nation.

NEC will invest around 15 billion yen to enhance data centres for cloud computing over a three-year period as it embarks on an ambitious goal for a tenfold increase in net profit by fiscal 2012, its incoming president said. NEC Senior Vice President Nobuhiro Endo, who will be appointed president, also said the company may consider expanding production lines for its auto battery business to meet increasing demand.

Chicago-based Hostway, a Web site hosting company, has lined up US$110 million in its first round of outside investment. New backers include New York-based private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, New York-based hedge fund Fortress Investment LLC, Boston-based investor Regimental Capital and Arizona-based Phoenix Life.

Hudson Fiber Network, an exclusive provider of high-bandwidth, low-latency networking solutions, has announced that it has partnered with Cervalis to deliver network services at its brand new, state-of-the-art site in Passaic County, New Jersey. This partnership enables Cervalis customers to connect to North America's top exchanges in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Toronto using HFN's X-Change Connect.

GIA announces the release of a comprehensive global report on Structured Cabling Systems market. The world market for structured cabling systems is projected to exceed US$8.2 billion by the year 2015. This is primarily driven by the increasing demand for broadband Internet across mature or developing markets alike; and secondly, the development of the Internet backbone in the emerging markets such as China and India.

France is opening around 100,000 sq m of new data centre space every year, reports Les Echos, citing Nelly Recrosio, the head of marketing for French power utility EDF's eco-efficient energy division. As it costs an average of €10,000 to build and equip a data centre, according to Tier1 Research, the French market is worth €1 billion a year. Around half of the country's data centres are owned by companies and government departments, and half by large hosting companies, such as Equinix, Global Switch and Telehouse, which lease their space to companies of all sizes.

Digital Realty Trust, has begun expanding power and data centaur capacity at its 210 N. Tucker property in St. Louis. The centrepiece of these enhancements is the addition of 16 MW of new electrical power, which effectively quadruples the power available to the facility. Other enhancements include a new power distribution system for the building and the addition of 30,000-60,000 sq ft of data centre space.

Medical equipment maker ResMed is considering building a co- or tri-generation plant in northwest Sydney for its data centre, manufacturing facility and offices. Facility manager Matthew Quinn told a gathering in Sydney recently that although the site had significant substation capacity, the rising cost of power in NSW had the potential to create challenges in the longer term.