Jonathan Ladd, CEO of Datacom Group, which is upgrading its data centres to the tune of $45 million.
Datacom subsidiary Datacom Data Centres has embarked on a $45m expansion to increase rack capacity by 40 per cent.
Upgrades to Datacom's Gloucester (Christchurch), Abel (Wellington), Orbit (Auckland) and Kapua (Hamilton) data centres are scheduled to be completed in the 2017/2018 financial year.
Fletcher Construction is the builder for all four projects.
The project will also add more than 2MW of power capacity nationally and all four data centres will deliver Tier-3 services.
“This is the most significant upgrade of Datacom’s datacentres since they were built, and a direct response to insatiable demand from our customers," Datacom Data Centres director Tom Jacob said. "This is a massive project that will see our already world-class, earthquake resilient sites expanded and enhanced."
According to Jacob, the project also ensures cost effectiveness and high performance for existing workloads, with demand across New Zealand growing for high quality data centres with premium accreditation.
For Jacob, Kiwi businesses are seeking to become more competitive, to reach new markets, to transform their operations and to reduce their costs for technology and are turning to the cloud to help enable these changes.
“Datacentres are the backbone of our economy, and we are looking forward to further enabling our customers’ digital transformational opportunities through the cloud, so they can best take advantage of a range of core emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, internet of things and hybrid cloud solutions,” Jacob said.
Nearly every enterprise and government customer is now using a hybrid combination of rack space and public cloud services, Jacob added.
In September, Datacom revealed a new executive line-up to target trans-Tasman government business.
By providing cloud services directly from Datacom’s datacentres, low latency and high performance can be assured and hosting of key customer data can remain within New Zealand for applications such as banking, telecommunications, health care and critical infrastructure.
Christchurch's earthquake-strengthened Gloucester data centre will nearly triple in rack capacity. Beyond the initial build, Gloucester will also see ongoing upgrades across the next 15 years to support South Island business.
Meanwhile, Wellington’s Abel Data Centre is already half-way through its upgrade in an earthquake protected CBD site - it will receive a 25 per cent boost in rack capacity.
In addition, Hamilton’s Kapua data centre - the company’s newest facility - will have a fourth data floor fitted out to deliver a 33 per cent increase in rack capacity.
Finally, Auckland’s Orbit Data Centre will get a significant 310 rack boost to become New Zealand’s largest data centre, with 1,100 racks.
“These are already state-of-the-art, world-class facilities, and our ongoing investment means that Datacom can continue to provide the superior experience that our customers demand well into the future," added Jonathan Ladd, CEO, Datacom Group.
"It remains a key competitive differentiator for us in the market, especially in the age of cloud."
