Keeping up with the connectivity economy – Equinix invests in Singapore

Keeping up with the connectivity economy – Equinix invests in Singapore

 

By Clement Goh, Managing Director, Equinix South Asia

 

Equinix SG3 540px

 

Equinix’s President of Asia Pacific, Samuel Lee, Managing Director of South Asia, Clement Goh and CIO, Brian Lillie were joined by officials from the Singapore Government and the Chairman and CEO of Mapletree Industrial Trust Management for the SG3 Ground Breaking Ceremony on April 18th, 2013.

Singapore is riding the crest of the data driven wave in our global connectivity economy. As it is uniquely placed as a regional subsea cable hub, the opportunity to support the digital expansion of the market means that we can adapt to demand in expedited mode.

As such, Equinix is expanding its footprint in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region with the launch of a third International Business Exchange (IBX) and expansion of our second IBX data center.

Driven by exceptional demand, chiefly from the cloud services sector and the financial services industry, our expansion comes at a time of great market acceleration.

Established and emerging customers are selecting Singapore and its facilities for its optimal geographic location, reputation as a secure location and a highly resourced economy both in brains trust, innovation and a highly skilled IT work force. Singapore is also the safest hub in terms of insulation from natural disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis, which provides a safe harbour for data and redundancy region-wide.

Singapore is also an exceptional city in terms of telecommunications infrastructure and associated resources. Equinix will be investing US$55M in what is the fifth phase of its second Singapore IBX data center.

Readying for business by the end of this year, the fifth phase of the expansion, represents an additional 920 cabinets, enabling the provision of a high-connectivity, high-availability environment to support its customers’ cloud-based services. The new investment takes the total number of cabinets at this IBX data center to 4,176.

Singapore and many of the Asian markets that use it as a data transit hub, is a city geared towards servicing the increasingly sophisticated demands of the financial services sector. With that comes the demand for latency. In high-frequency trading where liquidity imbalances operate on a time scale of a few microseconds, super charged, reliable connectivity is key.

From the customer perspective, the vagaries of the global economy and overall market conditions continue to become more dynamic and place increasing demand on the immediacy of service delivery and data flow. MNC’s are understanding that the pressure to keep up with network based data demands are best placed in the hands of service providers that can ensure that real time needs are met for all data servicing demands.

The new Singapore IBX data center, known as SG3, will provide approximately 385,000 square feet of gross floor area and 5,000 cabinets over multiple phases. It will also be compliant with guidelines set by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in July 2012, meeting the changing security requirements of financial customers.

For expanding customers, the SG3 will also feature Business Suites for existing and new customers in Singapore who require larger footprints. The new Business Suites offering provides bespoke solutions to customers and an option to tie their larger deployments for select applications.

Meanwhile keeping power costs down is a constant challenge in the Singapore market as it is a net importer of energy. This is why running a data center as a viable ecosystem is essential, it is not just about being a space and power provider but providing a conduit between all the elements required including connectivity to wherever is needed. Green is no longer an afterthought, it is simply part of the business and SG3 will also be built in line with our internal green specifications and to meet BCA Green Mark and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

The Singapore government continues to raise the bar internationally in data center quality and the encouragement of eco-friendly initiatives and as such both SG2 and SG3 are designed with the aim of operating as energy-efficiently as possible. A number of green features will be deployed at SG3 and including motion-activated LED lights, cold aisle containment infrastructure that supports higher power density installations for more efficient cooling and a solar power system will be implemented, a feature unique to SG3.

The SG2’s recent accreditation of the Gold Plus award under the BCA-IDA Green Mark for Data Centers scheme – a first in Asia and one that Equinix is proud to champion. We hope these types of innovations will be exported globally.

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