Digital Realty to usher in more high-uptime data centres in Hong Kong

Digital Realty Trust, the world's largest builder and wholesale provider of data centres, expects to trigger a wave of upgrades in the local data-centre market when it opens Hong Kong's first Tier III-certified facility in Tseung Kwan O in November.

Kris Kumar, senior vice-president and regional head for Asia-Pacific at Digital Realty, said yesterday that getting an official rating from the Uptime Institute, which created the industry classification for secure and reliable data-centre design, "would be more and more prevalent in the next two to three years".

"The reason is simple: information-technology infrastructure has become a life-support system for companies. It's no longer just a nice-to-have," Kumar said.

A data centre is a secure, temperature-controlled facility equipped to house large-capacity server computers and data-storage systems.

San Francisco-based Digital Realty will open the first phase of its Hong Kong data-centre project, which is a joint venture with information-technology services provider Savvis, on a 15,236 square metre site in Tseung Kwan O. Total investment in the facility would reach US$160 million.

Tan Teng Cheong, Savvis' country manager for Hong Kong and Singapore, said data-centre providers were increasingly bound to more stringent service-level agreements by customers, especially those from the financial services industry.