Host in Ireland, a strategic global initiative created to increase awareness of the benefits of hosting digital assets in Ireland, was awarded a specialist ‘Data Center Location Award’ at the prestigious Datacloud Awards. The ceremony is designed to recognise genuine innovation in the industry, service excellence and the continuing evolution of the sector.
Commenting on the awards, the chairman of the Judges’ Panel, Gerd Simon, said: “The Datacloud Awards, as the premier pan-European and MEAI event, uniquely reflects its importance and the ambition to achieve excellence in technologies and services. The Judges were delighted by the quality and breadth of this years’ nominations.”
For the first time, this years’ awards brought new recognition at an international level for data centre locations. Host in Ireland was the only non-governmental organisation in the competition, and scoped the lucrative award. Speaking of the win, President and Founder of Host in Ireland, Garry Connolly, said: “This honour caps a year of notable accomplishments for Host in Ireland, including the addition of several new member companies, the launch of the ‘Irish Pavilion’ and a host of multinational enterprises across diverse industry sectors selecting Ireland to host their digital assets.”
At the beginning of this year, we joined Host in Ireland alongside 16 existing partners, and our CEO, James Wilman, now sits as an Executive Committee member. For the past six years, we have provided data centre design and project management services for our Ireland-based clients, and we have recently been expanding in the region. Having experienced first-hand the innumerable benefits of doing business in the country, joining Host in Ireland to share our knowledge and expertise seemed like a natural way to grow our company and put something back in to the sector.
The importance of the ‘Data Center Location Award’
This new award recognises the importance of location in the evaluation of data centre investment. Eligible candidates needed to demonstrate their innovation during the past year, facilitating ease of process, connectivity and power, and the promotion of good practice. Furthermore, they had to explain why data centre or cloud investment formed part of the planning process for the location, show specific innovations in relation to the physical infrastructure, available skills, energy and taxation, and ultimately showcase why their location is uniquely competitive.
Eventually, three locations emerged as contenders: Host in Ireland, Fife Council, and The Node Pole.
Host in Ireland
The eventual winner of the category, Host in Ireland demonstrated how its 5 Ps – Policy, People, Pedigree, Pipes, and Power, underpin its strategy to remain competitive and be a more cost-effective, efficient, reliable, secure and accessible location than other regions across the EU.
Ireland’s data centre landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade as enterprises’ business requirements, and the pivotal role of cloud and content providers, continue to drive the global digital economy. Characterised as the “Home of the Hybrid Cloud,” “Data Capital,” and “Data Centre Hub” of Europe, Host in Ireland has worked tirelessly to shape and authenticate these global industry perceptions through timely and accurate information, including:
- Location: gateway to a European market of more than 500 million people.
- Workforce: among the ten best educated countries in the world.
- Pro-business: Ireland is an open economy supported by its corporate tax rate of 12.5%.
- Connectivity: 11 subsea cables connecting Ireland to the UK.
- Green: ideal climate for free air cooling, which significantly reduces operating costs.
- Reputation: home to over 1,000 multinational companies.
- Tech-hub: second highest ICT exports in the world.
Fife Council
Back in January, Fife Council broke ground on the construction of its 100% renewably powered data centre campus. It is the first of its kind in the UK to be exclusively powered by renewable energy, and its first co-location customers are expected to take up residence by next summer. Costing around £150m to build, the campus is projected to have an IT load capacity of up to 20MW, will boast data halls spanning just over 23,225 sq metres and sufficient space to house up to 1,000 high performance computing racks.
The Node Pole
The Arctic Circle may seem like a strange place for a data centre, but Facebook alongside other tech giants have made it their home. The Node Pole is a hi-tech hub in Luleå, northern Sweden and the most energy-efficient computing facility ever built. To keep running costs low, the low ambient conditions experienced for most of the year is used to provide compressor free cooling thus reducing the associated operational costs. The location was also chosen for its electricity supply, which is reliable and boasts a power surplus. And it is one of the most secure and stable places in the world; its last formal war was in 1814 and seismic activity is extremely low.
Future-tech: we make it easy to be green
We have been at the forefront of innovative data centre design, implementation and operations for over 30 years. We offer a range of new build and retrofit data centre services to enhance the design and energy efficiency of your facilities. As an ISO14001 accredited organisation, and winner of several ‘green’ awards, including the Certified Energy Efficient Data Centre Award and Uptime Institute Green IT Award, we know how to make cleantech work for your organisation.