The London Internet Exchange (LINX) has revealed that its successful network expansion to three new PoPs, in a shared-risk agreement with Equinix, Interxion and TelecityGroup, has resulted in further investment into these PoPs.

LINX made the significant investment in the new PoPs in 2008 and all three sites have now achieved a break-even run rate. As a result LINX is making further investment into these PoPs as it rolls out its new primary LAN based on Juniper routers.

Source: Newswire

Time Warner Cable will upgrade and expand a web-hosting computer services company in Salina that it bought in April, adding 20 new high-tech jobs to the local operation, according to US Sen. Charles Schumer. The new jobs are part of an expansion of NaviSite, which also provides messaging and cloud computing services from its offices on Elwood Davis Road in Salina.

In their report about the future of data centres, Jones Lang LaSalle predicts an even stronger demand in the next year. According to JLL’s mid-2011 US Data Center overview, most of the major cities have a lack of supply to fill upcoming needs in this sector.

Brockton Capital has announced that Brockton Capital Fund II has acquired a majority stake in mid-market, data centre specialist Virtus Data Centres. Brockton Capital’s investment will facilitate the development of new Virtus data centre facilities. Virtus have also recently acquired a brown field site in Hayes, West London which will see the development of a new-build data centre delivering 20 MVA across circa 50,000 sq ft of net technical space.

Leading UK internet infrastructure solutions provider C4L has announced the recent acquisition of additional colocation space at a new facility in London. Having experienced increasing demand for services in the London area through the first three quarters of 2011, C4L has moved to facilitate further demand over the coming months. C4L has partnered with Virtus for space in its North London Tier 3 facility, recently signing a six-figure deal for colocation services.

The promise of lucrative tax breaks helped persuade Facebook to build a data centre in one of Oregon’s most economically depressed counties. Now, the state and the company are in a dispute over how much Facebook may owe in property taxes, and the social networking giant fears it could be taxed on intangible assets like the value of its powerful brand.

Hermes Real Estate Investment Management Limited (HREIML), one of the largest institutional real estate managers in the UK with over £5.8 billion assets under management, and GCE Data Centres, have announced the acquisition of 43 Western Road, Bracknell, from DTZIM for £2.5 million.

Phone company CenturyLink reported lower third-quarter net income as operating expenses related to its April acquisition of larger phone company Qwest overshadowed increased revenue. In the July-September quarter, CenturyLink earned US$140 million. This is 40% lower than the US$232 million it earned a year earlier.

j2 Global Communications, the provider of cloud-based services for businesses, has announced that it has acquired the online backup business of C Infinity, an Ireland-based provider of online data backup and hosting services for businesses. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Cincinnati Bell has reported an increase in third-quarter profit to US$15.0 million, from US$11.9 million. Adjusted earnings were US$10.6 million this year, while no special items were recorded last year.

Quarterly revenues edged up to US$368.8 million from US$351.9 million as a result of a 26% jump in IT Services and Hardware sales and an 18% growth in data centre colocation revenue.

Source: RTT

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CoreSite Realty, a national provider of powerful, network-rich data centres, has announced financial results for the third quarter 2011.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, and Virtacore Systems, an industry leader in hybrid cloud services, has announced that Virtacore has leveraged Platform Equinix to support its expanding customer base and world wide growth. Part of Equinix's robust ecosystem of cloud and IT service providers, Virtacore benefits from the ability to quickly and securely interconnect with network and service partners in order to speed the deployment of its hybrid cloud services to enterprise customers.

In the wake of the McClelland report on the use of ICT by the public sector, the Scottish government is taking steps to implement the report's recommendations for a national ICT strategy for Scotland, beginning with the setting up of structures and governance.

Telecity Group, Europe’s industry-leading provider of premium carrier-neutral data centres, has issued the following Interim Management Statement.

Enterprise data services company Tulip Telecom has reported 11.62% growth in net profit at Rs 87.06 crore for the second quarter ended September 30. In the same period last year, Tulip had recorded net profit of Rs 77.99 crore.

"High demand for our enterprise services continues across the connectivity, managed services and data centre product portfolios. Even though lead time for decision making from organisations has increased, we have built a strong funnel across all product portfolios," Tulip Telecom CEO Sanjay Jain said.

PI Data Holdings acquired a 107,000-sq ft data centre at 601 W. Polk St. in Chicago from Ten X Capital Partners for US$10 million, or about US$93 per sq ft. The property was built in 1927 and renovated in 2001 and offers close proximity to a sub-station while also being situated on the primary fibre-optic ring servicing downtown Chicago. The seller said the building offers tenants more than 20,000 sq ft of space on a single floor with abundant power and diverse connectivity, which is rare in the downtown area.

SEGRO, Europe’s leading industrial REIT, has announced that it has signed a 125,000 sq ft pre-let for a new data centre facility with Infinity, at the Slough Trading Estate.

Vodafone is set to muscle in on BT and IBM's turf after setting up a division to target the lucrative contracts on offer around the Government's new plan to set up a "network of networks". The group has announced the appointment of Simon Holmyard as head of its first Public Services Network operation, to compete for contracts expected to run into hundreds of millions of pounds. It is the first UK mobile operator to target the space. Mr Holmyard has been promoted from within Vodafone's public sector sales and management team.

Best Buy has said that it has reached an agreement to acquire mindSHIFT Technologies, a managed service provider, for US$167 million. The transaction will help accelerate Best Buy's growth in the small and mid-sized business IT services category. mindSHIFT provides cloud services, data centre services and professional services to more than 5,400 clients and 25,000 managed desktops in key markets throughout the United States.

Worldwide IT spending pertaining to risk functions will reach over US$74 billion by 2015, according to new research from IDC Financial Insights.

Investing in companies that handle big data has piqued Accel Partners' interest in the past and the venture firm announced Tuesday that it was creating a US$100 million big data fund for promising start-ups. Accel's Big Data Fund will inject needed capital into companies ranging from next generation storage and data management platforms to a wide range of revolutionary software applications.

Accel Partners will manage its Big Data Fund across global offices in U.S., London, China and India.

Source: Vator

Enterprise data services provider Tulip Telecom will invest about Rs 270 crore in its data centre and telecom business over the next two quarters, a senior company executive said. The company, which claims to provide data connectivity to 75-80 % of 8,500 companies in India, wants to increase its wallet share by upgrading its offers to include cloud computing, software-as-a service, infrastructure-as-a-service and managed services.

Global Switch, the leading data centre provider in Europe and Asia Pacific, has received Planning Consent from JTC Corporation to build a best-in-class SGD$300 million fully-fitted data centre in Singapore.  This is the second major planning consent Global Switch has received within a year, Sydney having received full planning to build a second facility adjacent to its existing data centre, already the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

The International Finance Corporation plans to spend up to US$300 million in the financial year ending June and another US$400 million in the following year on new African telecoms projects that are not commercially attractive to traditional financiers. "We would very much be looking to do US$200-US$400 million a year for our own account in Africa and ideally helping mobilise funding from other sources - commercial banks, other development institutions - to double or triple that," said Kent Lupberger, IFC's global head for Technology, Media and Telecom.

PEER 1 Network Enterprises, a leading provider of online IT infrastructure, has announced its results for the three months ended September 30, 2011.  All amounts are stated in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

Primus Telecommunications Canada has announced that construction has begun on a new high density data centre facility in Markham to meet the spiking demand among GTA businesses for mission critical and business continuity solutions.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced the opening of the first phase of its second International Business Exchange data centre in Hong Kong. The new IBX data centre, called HK2, was built to meet the increasing demand for premium colocation and interconnection data centre services, particularly from financial services organizations and cloud service providers operating in the city.

French banking group BNP Paribas wants to build two new data centres a Vaux-sur-Sure, in the Belgian province of Luxembourg, Datanews reported. The group chose the site for climactic as well as security reasons.

The 15 year project will be conducted in three phases and will ultimately see the creation of 44.000 sq m worth of data centre buildings, and 70-80 new jobs. The first phase should be operational by 2015. The new centres will serve the entire BNP Paribas group and not only BNP Paribas Fortis.

Source: Telecom Paper

In consolidating its data centres down to just two, the Homeland Security has had to spend US$77 million to enhance the infrastructure of its facility located at the NASA Stennis Space Center, Miss., according to congressional briefings delivered by the DHS office of chief information officer to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Major publicly traded data centre developers and operators reported solid third-quarter results, with strong leasing of wholesale data centre and colocation space reflecting the rapid growth of cloud computing, social networks and Internet shopping.

euNetworks Group has announced strong third quarter results, with a further acquisition, a successful rights offering and continued sustained growth of the business.

eetworks delivered significant growth in the quarter, both excluding and including the financials of the two acquired companies. Total revenues grew by 117% year on year, from €11.1m in 3Q 2010 to €24.1m in 3Q 2011. Recurring revenues were €21.2m, up 114% from 3Q 2010. Network revenues continued to grow, up 146% to €19.2m in 3Q 2011.

Source: EON

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and over 200 SHI International employees, have cut the ribbon on a new 420,000 sq. ft. cloud computing campus and global headquarters for one of New Jersey’s largest technology businesses. The new cloud data centre and headquarters of SHI International officially has opened to serve clients around the globe with the latest, state-of-the-art cloud computing technology.

Australian data centre operator NextDC has received the go-ahead to start construction on its latest data centre in Sydney, S1. The City of Ryde Council granted formal development approval to the company for the construction of the facility on a 10,000 sq m site in Macquarie Park, which is scheduled to open in December 2012.

21Vianet Group, the largest carrier-neutral Internet data centre services provider in China, has announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter of 2011. Third quarter 2011 financial highlights included Net revenues increased by 114.8% to RMB261.6 million (US$41.0 million)from RMB121.8 million in the prior year comparative period and Adjusted net profit3 increased by 439.2% to RMB61.6million (US$9.7 million) from RMB11.4 million in the prior year comparative period.

Wipro Technologies, one of India’s largest IT services companies, is expanding its presence in SA, promising to create 1 000 new jobs over the next three years. Wipro, which is listed in the US and India, and which has annual revenues of US$7bn, is a big player in the business process outsourcing market. It employs about 130 000 people worldwide.

Wyoming-based Green House Data has announced that it will begin work next year on a US$35 million wind-powered data centre in southeast Cheyenne.

The government’s planned consolidation of its data centres and the need to improve energy efficiency across the sector is expected to drive growth in data centre construction next year, according to a new report. Built environment research firm AMA Research published a report on data centre construction which predicted that the growth seen in the sector in 2010 and 2011 is likely to continue next year and through to 2015.

IT infrastructure provider Revera says that a government contract win has pushed forward the construction of its fifth data centre by about six months. “We had every intention of building it before the AoG [All of Government contract],” says Robin Cockayne, Revera’s general manager for business development.

Five 9s Digital, a Charlotte, North Carolina company that owns and operates data centres in North Carolina and other US locations, plans to build a 138,000 sq ft data centre in Eagan, Minnesota.

Five 9s Digital has identified a site on Yankee Doodle Road, west of Pilot Knob Road, for a centre that will be called "The Connexion."   

Quest Software has announced that it has acquired VKernel, a privately held virtualized infrastructure operations management provider based in Boston, Massachusetts, for an undisclosed amount.

VKernel, a provider of capacity management products for virtualized data centres and cloud environments, will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary of Quest.

Source: CIOL

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Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program of up to US$250 million it intends to execute through December 31, 2012. Share repurchases may be made by the company from time to time in open market transactions at prevailing market prices or in privately negotiated transactions.  The Compensation Committee of Equinix’s Board of Directors, as part of its annual review, also added total shareholder return as an additional criterion for 2012 executive compensation.

Telx has announced its plans to build a purpose-built facility to support data centres, adjacent to its 100 Delawanna Avenue location in Clifton, New Jersey. The three-story, flagship data centre will add 215,000 gross sq ft of high power density, energy efficient space to Telx's C3 Cloud Connection Center portfolio. The Clifton Cloud Connection Center will provide more than 100,000 sq ft of customisable colocation space,

Englewood-based Latisys will announce plans to build a new data centre in the Denver Tech Center, a US$50 million project that is expected to create dozens of direct and indirect jobs. The 82,000-sq ft facility will be the company's second data centre on its 6.5-acre DTC campus and eighth nationwide. "We'll end up creating, out of the gate, construction jobs that will probably number ... 50 to 80," said Latisys chief executive Pete Stevenson. "When the centre is completed and open, we'll probably add between 15 to 20 people."

University Hospitals of Leicester trust is looking for a commercial partner to transform IT and communications for itself and other local health service organisations. It has published a framework tender worth up to £600 million over 15 years for a "managed business partner for IM&T transformation". Its own IT spending of £13m a year would account for nearly a third of this, although the deal will extend to its unified communications and extra transformational work. It does not currently have a major ICT provider.

Fisher Communications, a leader in local media innovation, has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Fisher Plaza, its approximately 300,000 sq ft  mixed-use facility located near downtown Seattle, to Hines Global REIT, for US$160 million in cash.

Software major Aditi Technologies acquired the US-based cloud computing start-up Cumulux for an undisclosed sum to offer cloud services and drive applications and workloads over a network, the company has said. "We are betting our business on cloud computing, which will give competitive advantage to customers as we have demonstrated our domain expertise in building solutions on Windows Azure for Microsoft's independent software vendors and enterprises in partnership with Cumulux," Aditi chief executive Pradeep Rathinam said.

Somewhere in an anonymous building located in a cluster of equally nondescript buildings on the Kansas prairie, 1&1 Internet has built a vast data centre to serve the needs of small and midsized businesses.

Some A$8 billion worth of additional data centre facilities will be needed if Australia is going to have a sustainable IT economy in the future, according to analyst firm IDC Australia.  IDC Australia chief of research, Matt Oostveen, said this outlook incorporates a calculation drawn from the Gershon review. The review, which was publicly released in October 2009, noted the absence of a whole-of-government strategic plan for data centres could cost taxpayers up to A$1 billion over 15 years if a more coordinated approach isn’t implemented.

Telstra’s newly formed software start-up incubation wing will have a strong focus on boosting the carrier's potential to sell cloud computing services, chief executive David Thodey has revealed.  In his report to investors on the company's progress, Mr Thodey said the new Application Venture Group was a key component of the carrier's cloud strategy. Revealed in August at the carrier's half-year results briefing, AVG has a A$40 million purse to find software start-ups with promising products and nurture them to commercialisation.

The Defense Department now plans to update the White House on its data centre consolidation progress and goals "on/ about" Nov. 28, more than six weeks after the plan's original deadline. Defense missed an Oct. 7 deadline set by the Office of Management and Budget for agencies to publish a full accounting of their consolidation "approach, rationale and timeline." The department then missed another self-imposed deadline of Nov. 7.

German regional network operator M-Net has completed the expansion of its housing capacity. M-Net's data centre in Munich had reached its capacity limit two years after opening of the centre, and it has now been expanded by 500 additional square metres.

The data centre now has server space of 1200 sq m.

Source: Telecom Paper

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Orange Business Services is accelerating its growth strategy in Asia Pacific by focusing on key areas such as network enhancements, cloud computing, strategic partnerships and network-related IT services. More than 800 enterprise customers in the region are already benefiting from the Group's international network backbone and related IT infrastructure investments of around €750 million in 2011.

The Foxconn Group will start construction of two buildings at the Kaohsiung Software Park in southern Taiwan on December 1, according to industry sources. The buildings will house three centres: a cloud computing centre to be equipped with an internally developed container data centre; a software development centre focusing on cloud computing, digital content, security monitoring, and environmental protection; and a technological innovation incubation centre, the sources indicated.

Indian IT services exporters are on track to increase Europe's share in their revenue and see only a short-term impact of the paralysing debt crisis, top executives said at the Reuters India Investment Summit. The debt crisis is sweeping closer to the heart of euro zone, with fears that the contagion may now spread from Greece and Italy to Spain and France.

iomart Group, the cloud computing and managed hosting company, has announced that it has acquired the entire issued share capital ofEQSN for a total cash consideration of £2,475,000, with £2,250,000 payable at completion and a deferred consideration of up to £225,000 contingent on the successful integration of the operations of EQSN into the Group. The acquisition will be financed jointly from the Company’s balance sheet and through a drawdown of £1,000,000 from the Company’s bank loan facility.

Hewlett-Packard Denmark have announced Maersk Line, the largest global shipping company, has signed a US$150 million-plus infrastructure services agreement that will support the shipper's global growth strategy.

Microsoft has filed an array of new US patent applications recently. Among them are inventions for the design of a wind-powered data centre. Microsoft's wind-powered data centre patent describes various techniques for powering a data centre through the use of a wind-powered generator.

The European Commission believes it is only "logical" that companies providing cloud services over the Internet face audits on whether they are keeping their promises on personal data security. The Commission would like to increase cloud providers' accountability to their users in an upcoming EU "Cloud Strategy", due out next year.

eHosting DataFort (eHDF), the region’s managed IT and advisory services provider and a member of TECOM Investments, has been honoured in three different categories at the annual Data Centre Strategies Middle East Awards 2011.

The Indian domestic data centre colocation and hosting market is estimated to reach US$609 million next year, according to a Gartner report. The market will experience consistent growth through 2016 when the market is forecast to total US$1.3 billion,

Asia-focused data centre services provider CSF Group reported group revenue 96.8% higher at £18.4 million in the half year to end-September. Profit before tax was £6 million is lower compared to £6.5 million in H1 2011 mainly due to the recognition of the gain on the sale and leaseback of CX1 in H1 2011 £4.5 million.

If everything goes as planned, Punjab’s Mohali will soon get a State Data Centre (SDC), one of the key information technology infrastructure elements. Wipro has been entrusted to act as consultant for the project and would assist the state government in setting up the data centre and in tendering process for selection of data centre operator.

Manchester technology firm, UKFast, is celebrating another quarter of significant growth that takes the internet hosting company closer to surpassing its targets for the year. Turnover Q3 2011 reached £4.3 million, representing an increase of nearly 40% on the same period last year.

Net profit figures between July and September reveal a 103% year-on-year increase. The figures are a culmination of existing customer sales and new business deals, with the 12-year-old business bolstering its ledger with 275 new customers.

Global Switch, the leading carrier-neutral multi-tenanted wholesale data centre provider, has officially launched a major extension to its Paris data centre campus.  The project has been delivered on budget and ahead of programme. The new 17,200 sq m building (to be called Paris West) is adjacent to the existing Paris East building creating the city's largest data centre campus of around 52,000 sq m. 

RTS Realtime Systems Group, a global trading solutions provider, has announced that the firm has just opened new data centre hubs in Singapore and Mumbai to support low latency trading across asset classes on major exchanges throughout the Asia Pacific region. The RTS Global Network already includes hubs in Chicago, Frankfurt, London and New York.

Telehouse, a provider of global data centres and managed ICT solutions, has announced that it's London Docklands data centre site, which houses the IT infrastructure of almost 500 major international organisations, now purchases 100% renewable energy from UK provider SmartestEnergy.