Equinix Opens 50th Data Center

Colocation provider Equinix today announced the opening of its 50th International Business Exchange (IBX) data center, a large facility in the London market. The milestone caps $2 billion investment by Equinix in expanding its data center infrastructure between 2007 and 2010.

"The opening of our 50th premier IBX data center is a massive achievement for the company and is a testament to our team, our services and the value we provide to our customers on a daily basis," said Steve Smith, president and CEO, Equinix (EQIX). "This milestone validates our fundamental strategy to protect and connect the world's most valued information assets and ensures that Equinix will continue to supply leading data center services for businesses now and into the future."

Second Largest IBX Site in Europe
The new LD5 data center in suburban London will provide 290,625 square feet of space (27,800 square meters), making it the company's second largest IBX in Europe after the FR2 facility in Frankfurt, Germany. T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's outsourcing division, is the anchor tenant in LD5. When fully built out, it will more than double Equinix' footprint in the London market, a key hub for financial services where data center space has been limited and the availability of power is a challenge due to construction for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

LD5 was built on the same campus that houses Equinix's existing LD4 IBX data center. The facilities are connected by more than 1,000 diverse dark fiber links, allowing customers from across the campus to easily exchange data and expand their operations. The LDX4 center, which opened in the fourth quarter of 2007, is currently operating at more than 90 percent full.

"For Equinix, continued growth and demand have been fueled by two particularly strong market trends: the need for financial market participants to locate in close proximity to each other in order to improve the efficiency of their trading operations, and the increasing uptake of cloud-based services by enterprises in the UK and in major markets around the world," said Russell Poole, UK General Manager, Equinix.

Fresh Air Cooling for Power Area
The design of the LD5 IBX features fresh air cooling for all of LD5's UPS and plant equipment, as well as variable speed secondary chilled water pumps and high efficiency fans within the CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units. This equipment has also been designed to respond to favorable climate conditions - in colder weather, outside air is used to chill the water that cools the data center, reducing the cost and energy usage traditionally associated with the process.

For T-Systems, the company's presence in LD5 is the latest of several installations in Equinix IBX data centers throughout Europe. "The reason we keep coming back to Equinix time and time again is that with them, we can expect a consistently high level of service," Tom Murphy, Head of IAS at T-Systems. "Their international reach fits well with our corporate strategy, enabling us to expand as and when our business demands it. Our move into LD5 has completely exceeded our expectations. The data center has been designed not only to deliver optimum resilience but also maximize on efficiency savings. It is a true state of the art facility, and we're delighted to be a part of it."

The Equinix LD5 IBX data center is being built out in phases, to be timed to meet market demand. This initial phase delivers 75,347 square feet of gross data center space (7,000 square meters) and capacity for 1,400 cabinet equivalents. On completion, the data center will have capacity for a total of 5,600 cabinet equivalents.