European News: Cable & Wireless, Infinera, Akamai

Here’s some of this week’s noteworthy links for the global data center industry:

Cable & Wireless opens UK data center. Cable & Wireless Worldwide announced the opening of a new data center in Uxbridge, Middlesex. The new facility features a PUE of 1.25, Tier III Uptime Institute accredited design, and seven data halls across 30,000 square feet.  “CIOs are now under constant pressure to respond to business demands for more agile IT. With limited skills and set against the need to reduce costs, many organisations are looking to outsource their data centre operations and make greater use of cloud services," said Michelle Senecal de Fonseca, managing director, hosting at Cable & Wireless Worldwide.  "I believe that the range of options available to our clients, through this new facility, from co-location to managed hosting, private cloud to secure storage, combined with the technical knowledge and experience of our team, will create a compelling proposition for the UK hosting market.”

Infinera selected for Colt Technology 100G service.  Infinera (INFN) announced that Colt Technology Services has made available 100 Gigabit Ethernet services to their customers, using the Infindera DTN platform over Colt's long distance network. Colt can now offer 100GbE services across its unique infrastructure combining 20 Colt carrier neutral data centers and a highly scalable long distance network that brings together Europe’s major business areas with 39 metropolitan area networks and 18,000 directly connected buildings. With Infinera’s DTN platform capability embedded in Colt’s long distance network, the company can continue to respond to the increasing demand for high bandwidth scalable Ethernet services from wholesale carriers and enterprise customers in the finance and media sectors. “As the company continues to transform from a traditional B2B telecoms operator to a provider of integrated IT and network services, enhancing our Ethernet services capabilities is key to delivering an end to end service experience that matches our customer’s agenda,” said Luke Broome, CTO at Colt.

Akamai and Orange form Alliance.  Akamai Technologies (AKAM) and France Telecom Orange announced a strategic alliance to address the growing needs of the enterprise sector for improved content delivery. Orange has agreed to use technology from Akamai's Aura Network Solutions to provide CDN services to business customers. Upon deployment, the operator's enterprise division Orange Business Services will market these solutions initially in France. In addition, the two groups have formed an innovation steering committee to identify areas of innovation in the field of CDN solutions. Through this partnership, Orange aims to meet its business customers' needs, particularly in the media and e-commerce markets, by providing cutting-edge video solutions and web-acceleration services. "Akamai and Orange have a history of bringing unique and innovative solutions to address enterprises' needs," said Mark Vargo, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Akamai EMEA. "By combining the strengths of two leading technology companies in a single partnership, we believe we can provide enterprises in the French market with a robust and comprehensive set of acceleration and optimization offerings that will help address all aspects of their online businesses."

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