Wipro Infotech has launched the Andhra Pradesh State Data Centre, a Mission Mode Project under the national e-governance plan.

The state data centre will host applications and data of various state departments to enable automation of government and citizen services. Spread across 9000 sq ft, the Data Centre has a storage capacity of 50 TB, expandable to 200 TB. As part of the scope, Wipro has undertaken complete design, supply and implementation of the physical and IT infrastructure of the DC.

Source: Express Computer

Imtech has announced that it acquires the Austrian ICT company Comnet. This acquisition will strengthen Imtech's position in the Austrian ICT market. The acquisition will be paid in cash and will directly contribute to the earnings per share. Employing a workforce of 25 IT specialists, Comnet realises revenue of around 6 million euro per annum.

HP has announced that technology services provider Range Technology Development Co. Ltd. has selected HP Technology Services to build an energy-efficient, cloud-based data centre. The new facility will provide Range Technology’s government and enterprise customers with cloud services to support their business growth demands. Organizations across China want to accelerate business innovation and growth in service areas such as transportation, telecommunications, e-government and healthcare.

Datalink, a provider of data centre infrastructure and services, has announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets, and selected liabilities, of Midwave Corp. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Midwave is an IT services and solutions firm focused on optimizing the data centres and IT infrastructure of enterprise companies.

Datalink purchased Midwave for US$17.6 million, comprised of a cash payment of approximately US$16.1 million and $1.5 million in Datalink common stock.

Immedion, a South Carolina based dedicated data centre and managed services provider has expanded its footprint into western North Carolina with the purchase of Netriplex’s Asheville data centre operation. 

As of Monday Oct 3, Netriplex Asheville will operate as an Immedion Data Center. As part of the acquisition, Immedion will be retaining Netriplex’s highly qualified engineering and support staff.  Netriplex’s 20,000 sq ft Asheville facility expands Immedion’s overall foot print allowing them to service a broader range of customers in western North Carolina and beyond.

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it is helping OJSC Rostelecom, the largest Russian telecommunications company, dramatically increase the speed and capacity of its optical backbone network, which moves vast amounts of data from Europe through Russia to the Middle East.

Fortune Data Centers, which provides premium wholesale data centre space for corporate customers, announced today that it has created a new development company, Fortune Development Group, to be run by Matt Mochary. John Sheputis, CEO of Fortune Data Centers said "As Fortune expands and scales its operations, we need specialized focus on our new projects. Matt will run Fortune's new developments.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has taken the first step in a wide ranging IT procurement that will replace its Partners Achieving Change Together (Pact) framework. It has published a pre-tender notice to sound out the market on the provision of a range of services, with the possibility of making the resultant contract available to other public authorities.

To meet the growing demand for managed information technology services and support for cloud computing initiatives, Cogeco Data Services is increasing its data centre space across the Greater Toronto Area, Barrie, Oakville and Vancouver to more than 100,000 sq ft. The Company is also offering a suite of managed IT solutions to help organizations deal with their increasingly complex and demanding data needs.

Specialist Computer Holding's UK business has broken through the £1 billion turnover barrier for the first time, following a double-digit sales hike in its fiscal 2011. The privately held IT group struck an upbeat note as it filed its annual accounts for the 12 months ending 31 March. Total turnover from continuing operations rose 11% to £2.48 billion, while operating profit fell marginally to £22.9 million in the face of "highly competitive market conditions".

In acknowledging the importance of having a state-of-the-art data centre; The Egyptian Credit Bureau "I-Score" has assigned Raya IT to design, build and implement the bureau's new data centre. The project is scheduled to be up and running by February 2012.

Imtech has announced that it recently obtained a large number of new orders in the German and Swiss ICT markets, as well as in the fast-growing Southeast Asian ICT market. The orders represent a total value of some €155 million.

The UK's Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has revealed plans for a three-year, £300 million IT services contract for the prison service, that will form part of the Ministry's transition to a new operating model for IT.

The contract is to support the National Offender Management Service's IT infrastructure, including networks and applications at prisons and agency headquarters, from July 2012. According to a contract notice just published, the contract will "replace the current services, pending transition ... to the Future ICT Sourcing target operating model".

The federal government has expanded the pool of data centres eligible for consolidation and now plans to close even more of the facilities than previously designated. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said the government is no longer limiting its data centre count to those centres measuring at least 500 sq ft. Lifting that minimum has increased the number of centres for consideration for closing from less than 2,100 to nearly 2,800. “I wanted to scope it so everything was game,” he said.

The Upper Austrian municipality of Kronstorf is waiting for search engine giant Google to start building a data centre for which Google had bought 75 hectares of land three years ago. National broadcaster ORF reported that the decision to build at Kronstorf was made by Google partly because the company wants to use only renewable energy, hence the location near the water powered plants at the river Enns. Moreover Google has already planted 13,000 trees on the acquired land.

Zayo Group executed a definitive agreement to acquire Seattle-based 360networks holdings, a leading provider of fibre network and telecom services.  The acquisition combines highly complementary assets – Zayo’s deep metropolitan fibre networks across 60 US metropolitan markets and 360networks’ unique intercity fibre network spanning the central and western United States. 360networks will be the largest of the 17 acquisitions made by Zayo since its inception in 2007.

IT services business Pinnacle Telecom has made its second purchase of the week with a deal for RMS Managed ICT Security, which provides IT security software and consultancy services to the mid-market and public sector. The deal follows AIM-listed Pinnacle's acquisition of Online Computer Developments last week and takes its 2011 deal count to four during a period where its services have been used at the Royal Wedding and Glastonbury.

The Kenyan government's regulations for back up and disaster recovery plans in the banking sector has spurred growth in data centres, as businesses move to comply to new rules. The Central Bank of Kenya has strict risk and compliance guidelines that compel banks to put in place mechanisms to guarantee business continuity in case of disaster, forcing banks to invest in data centers or to lease space within existing data centers.

Hosting.com, a leading provider of cloud hosting and recovery services, has announced the acquisition of Dallas-based NeoSpire, a mission-critical managed hosting company. The acquisition both expands the physical footprint of Hosting.com and adds additional expertise to the company’s portfolio of services. With data centres in Dallas, Denver, Irvine CA, Louisville, Newark DE, and San Francisco, the company is well-positioned to offer expanded services to customers in the south with geographic diversity across the country.

British entrepreneur Alastair Mills, less than a year after selling SpiriTel Plc for £37m, is on to his next venture. At SpiriTel, he presented private equity firm Penta Capital with a 70% return on their investment in 12 months and they’re backing him again with a £60m fund. His new company, Six Degrees Group, launched, already employs almost 100 staff and serves over 1,200 business customers.

Data centre provider M247 has completed the purchase of a new building in Trafford Park which will boost its capacity five-fold. The company has acquired the new 8,500 sq ft building, which neighbours its current 7,000 sq ft headquarters, to meet increasing demand for its services. Almost a third of the new 'carrier neutral' data centre will be taken up by customers already with M247 subsidiary Ice Colo.

Interxion, a leading European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data centre services, has announced that it is building its seventh data centre (FRA 7) in its Frankfurt campus. The new facility is being built to meet the growing demands of customers who will benefit from Interxion’s “Connectivity Hub” of more than 150 carriers and ISPs, making Interxion Frankfurt the leading option for connectivity-intensive companies, particularly in the digital media, financial services, and cloud service segments.

A groundbreaking for Ptolemy Data Systems' 6,000 sq ft data centre will be held Thursday at the Wrench Ranch Hills Subdivision. Jesus Rios, Vice President of Business Development at Ptolemy, says the first phase of construction will include a data centre, a call centre and administration offices.

Sidera Networks, the premier provider of fibre optic-based network solutions, announces the completion of its colocation expansion at 401 North Broad Street in Philadelphia, PA. In response to growing demand, the company acquired additional square footage to accommodate up to 100 new racks.

The expansion at 401 North Broad Street brings Sidera’s colocation footprint to nearly 40,000 sq ft in the Philadelphia market. Sidera’s building presence covers three floors, offering carrier-neutral connectivity to more than 25 service providers.

Local tech pros slam Hong Kong's reservation of two hectares of land in Tsueng Kwan O for data centre use as lacking a longer-term vision. On Wednesday, the SAR's Chief Executive Donald Tsang said the first site of the reserved land is expected to be put up for open auction in 2013 at the earliest during his last Policy Address speech at the Legislative Council.

Private equity firm ABRY Partners has announced that it has completed its acquisition of web hosting provider Xand Corporation. This acquisition comes two months after ABRY Partners and Berkshire Partners acquired colocation firm The Telx Group.

"We believe Xand's steady growth-to-date, along with its high quality facilities, services, and employees constitute a strong and scalable platform. We look forward to partnering with the team in growing Xand's footprint and market presence," Brian St. Jean of ABRY said

Source: The WHIR

The government's effort to consolidate data centres will yield far less in savings than originally projected, agencies say. Instead of saving US$3 billion by eliminating more than 800 data centres by 2015, as the Office of Management and Budget has projected, agencies now expect savings of only US$630 million and US$5 billion over a longer period, according to an OMB estimate based on agencies' latest data consolidation plans, which were made available last week.

Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry devices, said that it was open to look at the possibility of setting up regional data centres to avoid a repeat of the outage that affected more than 70 million subscribers across the world.

Emerson Network Power is joining a group of companies that are providing technologies and solutions for a world-class green data centre being built in Malaysia by Teliti International, a leading Malaysian IT services provider.

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office has said that it reached a deal with developers that should advance construction of a computing centre in Holyoke.  The deal, Coakley’s office said, includes a promise not to sue property owner Holyoke Gas & Electric as a non-profit moves forward with plans for the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center.  “The agreement limits the liability related to contamination on the property in exchange for promises to clean up the property and pursue the redevelopment project,” Coakley’s office said.

The international logistics service provider Logwin has enhanced its IT environment in Europe. In addition to its existing data centre in Grevenmacher it has now opened a new data centre 30 kilometres away at Bettemburg in Luxembourg.

Both locations operate redundant server and database systems which are permanently synchronized. To this end a data volume of some 10 terabytes must be transferred each day.

Source: Logistics Week

VMware, the biggest maker of programs that let computers run multiple operating systems, said it’s bracing for a “difficult” 2012 because corporations may slow spending on technology, including the company’s software.

Business data management company Onyx has been snapped up by Isis Equity Partners in a £42m deal aiming to grow the company. ISIS paid £27m to buy the Stockton company and committed a further £15m to fund strategic acquisitions. Set up in 1994, Onyx has 10 sites across the country including Newcastle, Teesside, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Sheffield. It has a £14.9m turnover.

Dell is expanding its China services business one step at a time as it tries to overcome quirks associated with running a business in that market, a company executive said.

Digital Realty Trust, a global provider of data centre solutions, signed a long-term, Build-to-Suit agreement in the third quarter of 2011 with NetApp, for a custom data centre in Hillsboro, Oregon. NetApp is an industry leader in delivering innovative storage and data management solutions that help customers increase IT efficiency and flexibility to drive business success.

euNetworks Group has announced that it has completed a rights issue raising more than €72 million in the process. Valid acceptances and excess applications for a total of 8,494,291,524 rights shares were received, representing 98.2% of the available issuance. The proceeds have repaid the shareholder loans raised to fund the recent acquisitions. The balance will support customer oriented capital expenditures, working capital and fund further growth opportunities.

Global provider of data centre solutions Digital Realty Trust has announced that the two data centre developments it is building in Western Sydney are expected to have a positive economic impact on the region, estimated at almost a quarter billion dollars. The data centre developments are expected to provide approximately 250 jobs in the Western Sydney Employment Hub. Spending on local labour and projected overall construction costs are expected to be in excess of A$200 million, based on current projections and estimates.

A new report from BroadGroup indicates that sustained growth in the third party data centre sector will occur over the next four years, and take 21% of all data centre space by 2015.

Intel reported profit and revenue gains for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 on strong PC and server chip sales, overcoming a drop in Atom tablet and netbook chip sales. Intel benefited from strong microprocessor shipments and double digit growth in laptop unit shipments, said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. The company saw strong data centre growth, driven by the growth of mobile and cloud computing, Otellini said.

Coraid, a leading developer of Ethernet SAN solutions, announced the acquisition of Yunteq, a provider of cloud orchestration software for public and private clouds. Coraid's groundbreaking Ethernet SAN platform eliminates multiple layers of traditional SAN complexity, providing the ideal platform for an automated, elastic storage infrastructure.

Digital Realty Trust, a global provider of data centre solutions, has entered into a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Clise Properties, to redevelop a six-story parking garage to include four floors of data centre space.  The new joint venture partnership subsequently signed a build to suit agreement with Equinix at the site, which will support 4,100 kilowatt of IT capacity

Data Foundry, a leading provider of data centre outsourcing, secure colocation and disaster recovery solutions, marks its 17th anniversary with the grand opening of Texas , the company's flagship data centre. The purpose-built, 250,000 sq ft carrier-neutral data centre (pictured) is the first colocation facility on the 40-acre master-planned Data Ranch data centre development in Austin.

Verizon just reported its quarterly earnings, and the headline is that its quarterly profits have more than doubled over the year ago period as wireless revenues surged by more than 9%. Per-share earnings were 49 cents compared to 23 cents a year ago on revenue of US$28 billion up 5.4%.

IT services provider, Logicalis, has set plans in place to significantly ramp up its data centre business. As part of this manoeuvre, it has become a NetApp Gold partner in Australia following on from a global partnership between the two companies. Combined with its Cisco expertise, the partnership enables Logicalis to supply and support FlexPod solutions in the market.

Linxdatacenter an international data centre and connectivity solutions provider, has launched its state-of-the-art data centre in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the largest and most advanced facilities of that kind in Russia. The company, serving the market for over 11 years, in addition to its top-quality Moscow centre is now expanding into the North-West region of the country, introducing along its cutting edge proposition to this area.

Alentus, an internet solution provider of web hosting, domain registration, dedicated servers, E-Commerce solutions and professional services, has announced it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Emnet UK Ltd, a Nottingham based company.

Backbone Connect, one of the leading U.K. managed networks and U.K. colocation providers, has announced the second phase of its Slough colocation data centre is now ready for occupancy. The second phase releases a further 250 colocation racks to help businesses lower colocation costs and move out of the crowded London colocation market.

Nutanix, the first company to offer a radically simple compute and storage building block for virtualizing data centres without the need for network storage, has announced US$25 million in new funding in a Series B round led by venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. Existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Blumberg Capital, are also participating in this investment round.

Apple has quietly begun work on a solar farm that apparently could help power its sprawling data centre in southern Catawba County. Permits issued by Catawba County show that the Cupertino, Calif., company has been approved to reshape the slope of some of the 171 acres of vacant land it owns on Startown Road, opposite the data centre, in preparation of building a solar farm.

Datacom has announced plans to build a new tier-3 data centre in Hamilton following the success of its bid to be a preferred supplier of cloud and data centre services to the New Zealand Government. The contract is for a period of 10 years with an optional 5 year extension. This initiative is part of a cross-Government ICT programme led by the Department of Internal Affairs to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of government.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has reported quarterly results for the quarter ended September 30, 2011.  This quarter included the first full quarterly results from the acquisition of an indirect, controlling equity interest in ALOG Data Centers do Brasil S.A. from April 25, 2011, which is referred to as the ALOG acquisition.

Infrastructure providers Revera are to open a new data centre, as they prepare to take up a 10-year contract to supply Infrastructure as a Service to government agencies.

The final phase of engineering to support the electrical systems for a 315,000-sq ft data centre facility on Chicago's Near South Side have been completed, developer JRM Technology has announced. Commonwealth Edison and the design-build team have finalized the engineering for the data centre’s power needs, moving the project forward after over thirty months of robust analyses and verifications, said James R. McHugh, JRM Technology's principal.

One of North America's largest value-added IT solutions providers, Pivot Acquisition, has announced it will open a shared services centre in Galway. Pivot Shared Services will build a highly skilled team, creating 25 jobs in 2011 and up to 75 additional jobs in 2012.

Digital Realty Trust, a leading global provider of data centre solutions, has announced financial results for the third quarter of 2011.

EarthLink, a leading IP infrastructure and services company, has signed an agreement to purchase the IT Solution Center and hosted application business from Synergy Global Solutions, a provider of hosted IT products, services and solutions based in Western, NY.

ManTech International Corporation has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Worldwide Information Network Systems, for US$90 million in cash. WINS is a leading IT solutions provider, specializing in network and infrastructure engineering, enterprise architecture, cyber security and systems development, software development and integration, and end-user workspace management. ManTech expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings per share in 2012.

TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, has announced it has completed the acquisition of CoSentry, an Omaha-based provider of outsourced IT infrastructure services. TA partnered with CoSentry management to acquire the company. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. Selling shareholders include McCarthy Capital, an Omaha-based private equity fund, and WaittCorp Investments, an Omaha-based investment company.

The government is aiming to achieve 10 improvements in its green ICT practice by the end of 2014-15, along with using more efficient data centres and recycling much of its computer hardware, according to a new document from the Cabinet Office. Greening Government: ICT Strategy, one of the sub-strategies of the Government ICT Strategy, makes the commitments as part of a four year implementation plan in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of its ICT estate and make it more energy efficient.

Sify Technologies, a leader in Managed Enterprise, Network and IT Services in India with growing global delivery capabilities, has announced its consolidated results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2011-12. Performance Highlights Q 2 FY 11-12: Revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2011 was US $ 37.10 million and Revenue from Enterprise services grew by 7.5% and from Software services by 22% over the corresponding quarter previous year.