Some days the news is slim pickings, and other days it just pours. Here is a quick look at several items in the datacenter and cloud space that were of interest:
Back in February when Pacific operator Pacnet (news) announced a plan to turn some of its landing stations into datacenter space, I was somewhat skeptical. Today they unveiled the first such facility in Hong Kong, dubbed a Data Landing Station. As I suspected, we’re not talking about a huge, cavernous building here though, it’s just 3,300 square feet with a power density of 8 KVA. But that space obviously has direct connectivity to EAC-C2C. There are more of these to come, I assume.
US-based Telx Group (news, filings) and European based Interxion have formed a strategic alliance when it comes to the financial vertical, giving each the ability to offer international solutions to their customers. That will help them to compete with the likes of Equinix when it comes to potential deals that require a presence on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Makes a lot of sense for both companies, IMHO – enough for me perhaps to contemplate a merger of the two somewhere down the line even.
UK colocation provider Telecity Group (LON:TCY, news, filings) announced further expansion plans. In London’s Docklands, they will be adding another 3MW of capacity to their existing campus, to be available in the fourth quarter of next year. And up in Manchester they will build a new facility with 3.5MW of capacity that will be ready in the third quarter of next year. It’s interesting how Telecity defines the size of the expansion in terms of the size of the power fed to the facility rather than the square footage – a sign that power issues are becoming even more dominant in the sector I suppose.
And finally, Navisite (NASDAQ:NAVI, news, filings) [a subsidiary of Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC, news)] enhanced its cloud-based messaging offerings by entering into a reselling partnership with Mimecast. The arrangement will allow them to resell features from Mimecast’s Unified Email Management suite, including email archiving, eDiscovery and policy management.
If you haven't already, please take our Reader Survey! Just 3 questions to help us better understand who is reading Telecom Ramblings so we can serve you better!
Categories: Datacenter
Join Our LinkedIn Group
The other interesting point on Monday’s PacNet announcement was what was not said — it mentioned the recent Public Offering as paying down debt (all owed to current shareholders) and allowing them to invest in West Asia Crossing and DCs. Specifically there is no mention of Pacific Fiber – this is as open as these guys get on the fact they have dropped the Pacific Fiber investment.
I have not managed to get anyone to say so officially, but I do hear that Pacnet dropped out of that project some months ago.
Correct on the departure from Pacific Fiber – they are not making a big noise about it due to the already perilous state of financing for the project.
The big news was the exit of one of the key investors through the private placement. The smaller funds in PacNet cannot ride out 4 or 5 years of investment and so this was an exit strategy for them rather than any real fund raising for new projects.
I also agree with Unimpressed on the DC announcement. This is not a true Tier 1 Data “Center” with the power limitations of 8KVA for the floor. I would also be curious on the cooling specifications and suspect they are similarly limiting.
I recall that PacNet acquired Pacific Internets low end colo operations in 2007 so this may be what Barney refers to on his current revenue projections.
I am also dubious on the West Asia cable as well. The funds raised were not enough for PacNet to build this cable without partners and inside rumors has it all likely suspects have rejected their overtures.
As usual we will never hear the true picture from this privately traded company.
PacNet’s DC in Hong Kong shows the problem of CLS Data Centers – limited power and space. I also notice the announcement still speaks of using the Japan EAC- CLS which is owned by NTT under the PC1 bankruptcy settlement arrangement. Interesting to see how this is going to be opened up by PacNet?
At 3300sq ft this is hardly significant given the total size of DC space in Hong Kong exceeds 1,000,000sq ft. Unless I am also mistaken the CLS within Hong Kong and Singapore are not capable of full 1+1 power redundancies due to technical, zoning and space restrictions rendering them less desirable for mission critical applications.
I suspect this announcement was to announce the success of their Private Placement (given two failed IPO attempts in the last 2 years) and a ploy in upcoming negotiations with Equinix and Global Switch etc which supply PacNet with more than 250,000 sq ft of space in their various Asian DCs.
I re-read this press release and had to laugh. These guys really struggle on their credibility …. they say it is a “carrier neutral” data center as you “have a choice of local back-haul providers” … I thought the point is choice of international carriers.
Call me skeptical but I don’t see the attraction for businesses when you have no choice for international connectivity.
Also, for clarity, EAC is not the fastest route to USA, It is AAG (which co-incidentally can be accessed at any true carrier neutral DC in Hong Kong) and is significantly faster.