Business Internet Service Provider, Timico, has announced a move that will further strengthen its position as a provider of next generation internet and communications services to the UK business community - the acquisition of data centre and IT service provider, NewNet.

Digital Realty Trust has announced the results of its leasing activity for both the fourth quarter and full year 2009. For the full year 2009, lease signings represent over US$472 million in total cash contract value.

murphx has opened the doors to its new purpose-built data centre facility on the South Coast. The move marks the start of a new level of customer service as murphx provides access to highly secure, scalable, high power rack and suite environments as well as direct access to the murphx network for lower latency services and high speed access via its upstream carriers and international peers.

Proposals for a £20million computing centre at Inverness, creating up to 400 jobs, have been submitted to Highland Council planners. Dingwall-based IT services company Alchemy Plus has lodged plans for the environmentally-friendly project on a site at Inverness harbour. If approved, work on the scheme could start by the summer, with the centre opening next year.

MarquisNet, a provider of colocation and disaster-recovery services, will facilitate the network expansion of MessageBroadcast, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based provider of turnkey, multi-channel, interactive message delivery services to world-class enterprises, the companies announced today.

New York City’s financial institutions form the largest part of the data centre market in that area. In light of the reliance of this sector on data centres, and with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, these institutions (along with regulators) have sought to establish backup data centres outside New York City. This outward push, however, is balanced by the need to keep data centres at least somewhat close to the city, since financial transactions can be affected by even split-second delays in data transfer time.

Spanco, a leading system integration and business process outsourcing services provider has bagged a Rajasthan State data centre order by the government of Rajasthan. Financial details of the order were not disclosed.

This is the second SOC order which the company has received after winning the Orrissa SDC contract, and is the part of the core infrastructure under the National eGovernance Program instituted by the Department of Information Technology, Government of India. 

Source: My Iris

Lack of whole-hearted government support and vaguely-worded environmental legislation are threatening Scotland’s potential to be an international leader in one of the fastest-growing global businesses. In southwest Scotland two of the world’s largest data centres could provide jobs, educational opportunities and manufacturing growth if they are allowed to flourish.

NaviSite, and Data Age Business Systems, a leading provider of Financial Transaction Software Solutions, have announced they have entered into an agreement in which NaviSite will provide its data protection and disaster recovery hosted service to back up all Data Age customer mission critical data as part of the Data Age Digi-Shield continuous off-site back up service.

The Financial Services Authority has put several contracts out to tender for new IT services worth at least £80 million. The regulator has issued seven two-year contracts for IT services under its technology strategic outsourcing framework agreement, which could see a maximum spend of £160 million.

The tender includes contracts for software applications, maintenance, advice, testing, web design, infrastructure and business process outsourcing.

Source: FT Adviser

A key part of the Yorkshire Digital Region project has been launched in the Dearne Valley. Doncaster mayor Peter Davies cut the ribbon at the brand new Yorkshire Data Centre in Manvers, near Mexborough - opening the biggest secure space in the country for companies to site their computer servers.

Backers say the centre will have a big impact on the South Yorkshire economy - providing server space and internet connectivity, and providing recovery services if another disaster like the 2007 floods were to happen.

United Airlines is looking to sell and then leaseback the space at its former world headquarters facility in Chicago. Jones Lang LaSalle is marketing the 66-acre, one-million-sq ft property. There is no price tag set on the deal since the property could be utilised by a variety of different user types, including manufacturing, medical and educational. The campus includes four office buildings and an underground data centre.

Explorys announces the first stage of completion of its enterprise scale data centre in Northeast Ohio. The company recently signed a multiyear agreement with Expedient to leverage their national network of high capacity, secure, and SAS70 compliant data centres for the Explorys network.

The data centre will serve as the base for future expansion of the Explorys DataGrid platform. Built upon next-generation massively parallel grid computing, the Explorys DataGrid platform will provide the engine for the company’s healthcare population intelligence and search engine.

Anyone dead set on consolidating data centres across government, as the government technology and budget experts in the Obama administration seem to be, might profit from talking with their counterparts in the Clinton administration, which undertook a similar task nearly 15 years ago with depressing results.

Core Services has, announced the opening of a new 50,000 sq ft dual path power data centre, strategically located in Somerset, New Jersey.  Formerly an alternative trading floor/disaster recovery centre for a major Wall Street bank, no expense was spared to incorporate state-of-the-art infrastructure.

Accenture has been awarded a five-year contact to provide ITV with core IT service management, infrastructure and application management services. The consulting, technology and outsourcing company will help the broadcaster to change its business so that it is better focussed on the ‘digital home’.

ITV plans to transition its desktop services, help desk, and data centre management to Accenture later this year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Source: Broadcast

A payment protection insurer that is a subsidiary of the French Credit Agricole Group has signed a deal with Irish tech firm IT Focus to invest 220,000 euro in a disaster recovery and managed-service solution. CACI has 57 people with 11 nationalities working in Dublin. CACI is headquartered Paris and Lille, France, and has three representative offices of the Irish companies in Milan, Frankfurt and Madrid - all of whom are dependent on the Irish IT infrastructure.

HP Enterprise Services has announced a three-year, US$123 million technology services agreement with California's Welfare Client Data Systems Consortium intended to enhance service delivery to the state's welfare clients and improve staff productivity.

IT services provider HCL Technologies has won a five-year IT infrastructure management contract with Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux. Under the contract, HCL will support workplace services for Electrolux including proactive monitoring and management of network, servers, IT security and end user computing environment in 12 countries in the APAC region including Australia.

The Bombay Stock Exchange or BSE has offered space on its premises to its members to colocate their servers, in line with its rival National Stock Exchange or NSE at almost one-fifth the price of the latter. The BSE's move is being seen as an attempt to revive its derivatives segment. The BSE offers a single-rack space for Rs.4.5 lakh per annum, whereas the NSE is selling it at Rs.22.5 lakh. Each rack can handle two-four servers. Each server can execute orders worth over Rs 200 crore daily, sources close to the development said.

San Diego-based Castle Access, a provider of enterprise data centre services, has said that it has received a multi-million dollar, strategic equity financing. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. The firm said the equity funding will go to increase its investments in its data centre services, and for infrastructure expansion.

Castle Access said it would provide additional information on the funding in the next 60 days. The firm says it has a 88,000 sq ft SAS 70 Type II audited facility in San Diego.

NII Holdings, a provider of mobile communication services operating under the Nextel brand in Latin America, has selected HP Enterprise Services to manage its applications and technology infrastructure support services throughout Latin America. The agreement covers the management of NII's IT applications and infrastructure across its operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru and headquarters in the United States.

The Taiwanese subsidiary of IT services and solutions company Unisys has won a two-year contract from the Bank of Taiwan to provide application outsourcing and ClearPath mainframes. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Real estate developer Japan Land said it has completed its new Jurong data centre in Singapore. The total project cost for Phase one amounted to S$215 million. Japan Land invested about S$40 million in the project, with the remaining funds coming from various other investors. The developer said it will explore similar opportunities in Asia, especially in Malaysia, China and India.

Delhaize Belgium has announced that it has entered into an agreement to implement an integrated supply chain enterprise resource planning platform to standardise its end-to-end supply chain transactions, for an undisclosed deal. The collaboration has been signed with Accenture a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. This multi-year agreement allows Accenture to collaborate with Delhaize Belgium to help implement the new platform.

Voonami has unveiled a huge computing facility in West Valley City, Utah, on touting it as the greenest in the state and on par with Google's most efficient centres. Providing the chill is a giant evaporative cooler, similar to swamp coolers that have been in use in dry climates since the beginning of the 20th century. The cooler, along with other engineering innovations, are expected to trim energy costs by 80% over a typical giant data centre, said Voonami president Ben Bush.