By Tony Simonsen, managing director, Equinix Australia
The rivalry for supremacy between the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne is a tussle that continues to keep both hubs on their competitive technology toes. Sydney is renowned for its aesthetics, harbour vistas and new capital, while Melbourne impresses with its European stylings, old money and an arty, intellectual scene. Both cities are also fighting for technology centricity.
In the data game however, demand has no geographic or cultural boundaries. As such, Melbourne and its highly intensive data needs have made a compelling case for Equinix’s latest data center investment in Australia, ME1.
While Equinix has three data center facilities in Sydney, SY1, SY2 and SY3, many of our Sydney based clients have requested a complementary Melbourne-based facility.
Melbourne, which many only know as a financial hub, is extremely network and ISP rich. In fact, Melbourne has one of the largest Information Technology R&D clusters in the southern hemisphere, producing world-leading, commercially focused research across technology, gaming and biometrics. A significant amount of money is being invested in the city as well, particularly in the financial services and technology industries.
Because of this, Melbourne fits perfectly into Equinix’s global profile as a ‘tier one’ location for selecting new locations to invest in. Not only does it have a high GDP, but 46 percent of the top 250 Australian owned IT companies are present in Melbourne, as well as forty of the Fortune 500 companies.
To meet our customers’ demands, ME1 will be centrally located in Port Melbourne, providing capacity of 1500 cabinets with the first phase of 375 cabinets being completed in Q4, 2014.
Specifically, it’s been predicted that there will be 23 million Internet users in Australia in 2017 with IP traffic reaching 30 Gigabytes per capita, making it equivalent to 2 billion DVDs per year, 189 million DVDs per month, or 258,430 DVDs per hour.
To address this rapid growth in traffic, Australian ISP and content providers in ME1 will be able to select and interconnect directly with a wide range of network providers through the Equinix Internet Exchange, helping to decrease latency and significantly improve performance while reducing costs. Customers will also have access to more than 950 network providers; 120 of which are based in Australia.
Plus, with the build out of the National Broadband Network accelerating, this will also amplify demand and content consumption in Australia. As Melbourne is the cornerstone of Victoria’s economy and the technology hub for the state, the government has helped stimulate investment in high-speed broadband and wireless networks, secure data centers, intercontinental connectivity, university and corporate research labs, test beds, and education facilities.
At Equinix, we also aim to stimulate investment in the city, as ME1 will accelerate the digital supply chain and boost employment with the addition of engineering and sales staff.
What’s more is that the dual market presence in Australia’s two biggest cities will enable multi-national customers to expand into other markets and accelerate business growth while improving performance, flexibility and agility.
Now, with ME1 in place, who wouldn’t want to put their IT infrastructure down under!
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