Colt expands its data centre capacity in London and Hamburg

Colt has expanded its carrier neutral data centre facilities in both London and Hamburg, following increased demand for secure and flexible colocation solutions. Expansion of the two data centre sites aligns with the continuous growth in the colocation market, with the European market for colocation expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.6% over the next 5 years.

The company has provided an additional 1000m2 of data halls to its London 3 data centre, located in Welwyn Garden City, bringing the total space available within the facility to 6,500m2. Built with Colt’s unique modular design, the facility now encompasses a total of eleven data centre halls. Expansion of the London 3 site was completed in March 2014 in response to customer demand for capacity at the data centre.

Colt’s London 3 data centre is a state-of-the-art facility and the company’s largest data centre hub in London. It is one of three carrier neutral London data centres that Colt operates, with direct connectivity between them and connected to a further 59 third party data centres in London and actively connected to almost 2,000 buildings in the London area. The data centre, which has been awarded the Uptime Institute’s Management & Operations Stamp of Approval, provides a total power provision of 33 MVA and has an industry leading Design PUE of 1.21. It is designed and built to Colt Tier III standards.

Detlef Spang, EVP Data Centre Services at Colt, commented: “The expansion of our London data centre 3 facility highlights the increasing demand for flexible data centre space in the UK. It was September 2012 we last expanded the facility, however we hit capacity at the beginning of 2014, triggering the build of the next two data halls.

“It also draws our attention to the changing demand for data centres: it’s not just about size or location, it’s about efficiency, reliability and security, which is exactly what we aim to offer with the London 3 facility. The unique and flexible design of the London data centre means we can expand quickly and cost effectively to meet business demand”, continues Spang.

Colt is also expanding its data centre facility in Germany; Hamburg 1. The data centre, which currently has 535m2 of built space, is being expanded by 565m2. This is the first expansion of the facility, which was built in 2001. The expansion, like the London 3 data centre, is a direct result of increasing demand.

Hamburg accounts for approximately 5% of the total of Germany’s data centre supply and Colt’s Hamburg 1 data centre currently serves multiple customers in that market. It is also part of the Colt Metropolitan area network, which has over 700 connected buildings. The development of the data centre is currently underway and is expected to be completed in August 2014.

“As two important markets in Europe for colocation, demand in both our London and Hamburg facilities is increasing exponentially. We see the increase in demand as a positive sign that businesses are becoming more focused on their data and the importance of where it is located, both in the short and long term. Colocation remains an area of focus for Colt and we will continuously invest in expansion where necessary, in line with our commitment to deliver the highest level of quality and reliability to customers”, Spang concludes.

Colt will use the new data centre capacity in both London and Hamburg to target the growing colocation market. With more than a decade spent creating exceptional data centres across Europe that exceed industry standards for security, reliability and environmental sustainability, Colt is well placed to take advantage of the growing appetite for colocation amongst European CIOs.