Carrier neutral Central London colocation Tier 3 data centre for server hosting

City Lifeline enables its customer base with direct connection to euNetworks

City Lifeline, the London-based independent carrier-neutral colocation data centre, has today announced it can offer its customers a high-density network connection from bandwidth infrastructure provider, euNetworks.

This arrangement now brings the number of voice telecoms carriers and internet carriers to a total of 23 that have chosen to establish a Point of Presence (POP) at City Lifeline’s data centre. Ideal for any organisation requiring high-speed access and monitoring fast transactions, euNetworks’ infrastructure will significantly boost City Lifeline’s connectivity and carrier offering.

Roger Keenan, managing director at City Lifeline says: “We are delighted to be able to give our customers the option of using euNetworks’ fast network. As a carrier neutral colocation data centre it’s vital we can provide a wide range of networks to meet our varied customers’ needs, whether it be a fast network or a direct secure link to the Far East.”

”We are delighted to provide City Lifeline customers with direct connection to our metro network in London and onward to further cities in Europe,” said David Selby, Vice President of Product at euNetworks. “We continue to add more data centres and bandwidth intensive buildings to our metro networks across Europe, enabling enterprises to benefit from our high-bandwidth fibre-based services.”

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About City Lifeline

City Lifeline is the leading independent carrier-neutral colocation data centre in central London. With some of the best connectivity in London, City Lifeline provides a secure, reliable and resilient home for telecoms, computer and server hosting. Lifeline House is situated in an ideal central London location with a wide choice of carriers connecting across the world. The data centre offers a first-class, flexible and personal service with the security, equipment, plant, services and engineers to match.
For further information about City Lifeline visit: www.city-lifeline.co.uk

About euNetworks

euNetworks Group Limited (SGX: H23:SI) is a bandwidth infrastructure provider, owning and operating 13 fibre-based metropolitan networks across Europe connected with a high capacity intercity backbone. The company offers a portfolio of metro and longhaul Ethernet and Internet Protocol services including dark fibre, dedicated fibre, wavelength, Ethernet, and Internet. Enterprise and carrier customers benefit from euNetworks’ unique inventory of fibre and duct-based assets that are tailored to fulfil their high bandwidth needs.
euNetworks Group Limited is headquartered in London and publicly listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. For further information please visit www.eunetworks.com

City Lifeline will be exhibiting at the 2011 Travel Technology Exhibition at Earl's Court on 9th and 10th February. Come and see us on Stand B13. We can explain why a well-connected Central London colocation data centre can bring real benefits in terms of reliability, resilience and security to any business involved in international travel.

What does 2011 hold for London colocation and data centres?

Roger Keenan, Managing Director, City Lifeline

The market for London data centre and London colocation capacity is clearly still recovering from the economic slowdown in 2009, and activity rates for take-up of data centre and colocation capacity are still nowhere near the heights reached before the Lehman Bros crash at the end of 2008. Economic confidence has taken a huge hit and customers are reluctant to commit to London data centre or London colocation capacity because they are uncertain about the returns they will gain from their project in their market. Confidence though, will start to return, get overblown, people will start talking about how it’s different this time, prices will go up, new London colocation capacity will be installed and there will be a bubble then a crash.

However, the next bubble in London data centre and London colocation capacity isn’t going to come in 2011 as it’s likely to be a year of slow and cautious recovery, with demand and supply continuing to increase at a slower rate. The net effect will be a mild increase in colocation prices in London over the year. Little new colocation capacity in London is likely to become available for rental during the year, but the on-going trend for colocation and hosting capacity to be built outside the M25 will continue.

The move for data centre, colocation and hosting capacity to be built local to markets (and not just London) will continue, and will satisfy a growing number of local customers, particularly smaller businesses that recognise they have outgrown the “server cupboard under the stairs’ and need to start locating their critical equipment in a secure colocation data centre environment with reliable power, cooling and connectivity. Customers who do need low latency or central access or the ability to connect through multiple carriers will continue to colocate their equipment in central London, which is where Internet hosting is.

Roll on the London Olympics

2011 will see colocation and hosting activity surrounding the London 2012 Olympics ramping up which will have an effect on the colocation in London data centre market. The London games will drive colocation data centre capacity utilisation for hosting which will be planned in 2011 and installed in 2012. Unfortunately, it will also be un-installed in 2012. This presents the London colocation data centre market with an interesting pricing challenge.

Green debate continues

The general world-wide concern with the environment will continue, and public consciousness of the issues will deepen. The colocation and data centre industry has so far stayed largely under the public perception radar (on some counts, the data centre industry generates more carbon and warming than the air transport industry, but is much less visible). That may not last, and it is for the industry (and especially the colocation hosting industry in London to get itself prepared before any public spotlight turns on it.

Colocation data centres (or well-run and professional ones anyway) will be continuing to work away at improving energy efficiency. The Carbon Reduction Commitment rules will start to come into play, with publication of league tables of the good and the bad, based on their rate of improvement over time. The big London colocation data centres will certainly figure in those, and it will be interesting to see who goes up and down.

Coping with the inevitable energy price hikes

Electricity prices for colocation are likely to rise in 2011, and there will be continued pressure on colocation data centres in London to use less and to use it more efficiently. This drive will fail, as it always does, because released London colocation capacity is taken up by new applications no-one has yet thought of. However, the drive for efficiencies will continue. In particular, colocation cooling, which is where most data centres waste most energy, will be a particular focus, since it is where the greatest savings can be made with the lowest capital investment.

Battle for refrigerators is taken to the supermarket aisles

Technology trends in colocation data centre design are already established, and 2011 is likely to see a continuation of those trends rather than any dramatic new departure (but then if we all knew about those in advance, they wouldn’t be dramatic, would they)? Moves towards greater colocation cooling efficiency will continue, with replacements of older chillers using R22 refrigerant accelerating, as the (ozone-depleting and now-illegal) R22 refrigerant becomes in short supply. The panic predicted by the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry might actually happen in 2011, since most of the UK’s stock of refrigerators use R22 and it is now illegal to manufacture or import it. Badly-run colocation hosting data centres, in or outside London, which have ignored all these warnings may find themselves fighting supermarkets for supplies of R22 recovered from scrapped units.

More London colocation data centres will start using efficient UPS systems. Older systems waste a lot of energy in heat in the industry-standard double-conversion process, and restrict the power which can be delivered to the hosted electronic equipment from the supplies because of poor power factor performance. Modern high-speed electronics can work in time scales well under a mains cycle, so can dynamically alter the way the hosted colocation load is presented to the mains supply. That means it is possible to achieve power factors of 1.0 at the supply, whist delivering to the hosted electronic load at 0.9. Similarly, average efficiencies can be greatly increased by switching the hosted colocation electronic load directly to the mains supply, then recovering it back within a small part of a cycle at the slightest hint of a disturbance. UPS systems incorporating both these technologies have become available, and their advantages are such that their take-up in colocation hosting in London will increase during 2011.

2011 won’t be a year of great drama in the London colocation and data centre industries. The economic recovery is tentatively underway, but has not yet really taken hold, and the UK and London colocation market will develop in line with slowly increasing confidence. When we write this next year, we will be more confident in the business outlook and we will be on the bottom of the slope up towards the next bubble.