World News: Savvis, Alcatel-Lucent, Global Crossing

Here’s a roundup of recent headlines from the data center industry around the world:

Savvis meets Asia Pacific cloud demand. Savvis (SVVS) announced its signature cloud service, Savvis Symphony Virtual Private Data Centre (VPDC), will be available in the second quarter of 2011 from its Singapore data center. Available currently in the U.S. and UK,  Savvis Symphony VPDC allows clients to quickly and securely design and deploy a complete set of enterprise-class services for a variety of applications.  "We are experiencing huge demand from our global clients to support their expansion plans across the Asia region, which is an important growth market for Savvis," said Mark Smith, managing director, Asia, for Savvis. "The launch of Savvis Symphony VPDC in Singapore will enable local organizations and Savvis' global clients to harness even greater efficiencies from their IT infrastructure."

China, UAE and NTT deals for Alcatel-Lucent.  This week Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) had several announcements in conjunction with Mobile World Congress underway in Barcelona this week. This YouTube video sums up day 1 at the conference and some of the company's key technologies. Alcatel-Lucent announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator and a leader in TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE, for the development of a next-generation radio access network (RAN). The two companies are investigating a cloud-based RAN to provide a common platform for multi-mode wireless standards such as GSM, 3G and LTE.  Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s activities in Asia-Pacific said: “The partnership with China Mobile is directly addressing the challenges of high energy costs, explosion of mobile video and sustainable development. By helping them replace traditional network designs with flexible cloud-like architectures, we are preparing the future and help show the way in terms of technology and economic models.”  Alcatel-Lucent also announced that it has inked an agreement wiht UAE telecommunications proider Etisalat for a planned deployment of the Middle East's first and widest Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in the UAE. Etisalat will deploy the first commercial LTE network in the Middle East within the first quarter of 2011. Finally it was also announced that Alcatel-Lucent will create enhanced social networking experiences for consumers through the seamless integration of video and multimedia across mobile and fixed domains in collaboration with DOCOMO Communications Laboratories Europe GmbH (DOCOMO Euro-Labs), the German-based research center for Japan’s leading service provider NTT DOCOMO, Inc. The “Celebrity Tracker” project will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, February 14-17, within the Alcatel-Lucent exhibit located at Hall 6, Booth 6C23.

Global Crossing power Australian Open. Global Crossing (GLBC) announced numerous deals with broadcasting companies for the handling of the Australian Tennis Open 2011. FOX Sports, the Tennis Channel and  Russian satellite broadcaster NTV-PLUS had extensive standard-definition and high-definition coverage of the event via Global Crossing Genesis Solutions' on-site special event transmission services.  Global Crossing acquired Genesis Networks late last year.  All services were network protected, diversely routed end-to-end and monitored and managed by Global Crossing Genesis Solutions' on-site technical support, as well as by Genesis Solutions Network Operation Center and network engineering teams.