Equinix has completed a US$28m expansion of its Melbourne international business exchange data center, with newly signed customer Yarra City Council among those benefiting from the new facility.
The ME1 data center, located in Port Melbourne, now features an additional 750 cabinets and an additional 17,900 square feet of colocation space, bringing the total operational capacity to around 1125 cabinets and total colocation area to 35,790 square feet.
Jeremy Deutsch, Equinix Australia managing director, says the development and expansion of ME1 phase two addresses the growing demand from businesses planning to expand into Melbourne, which is now home to 25% of the Australian business population.
“Melbourne is a significant site for us, and one of the most requested by our customers,” Deutsch says.
Equinix says the investment is ‘an indicator of Equinix's continued commitment to customers, prospects and partners in the region'.
The interconnection company has 28 IBX data centers across five countries in APAC.
The recently completed IBX enables new and existing customers to use evolving ecosystems in cloud, network service providers, content, financial services and enterprise across other Equinix locations.
Yarra City Council recently signed with Equinix in a move it says is saving it around US$1350 on power consumption per month.
Yarra City is using Equinix for cloud connectivity including Microsoft Azure and Office 365, along with data backup and disaster recovery.
Rick Bottiglieri, Yarra City Council innovation manager, says the council plans to move its existing data center operations into Equinix over the next two years as it pursues a cloud-first innovation strategy.
“This means our staff and the population of Yarra stand to benefit significantly from improved platforms and services and increased high-speed capacity,” Bottiglieri says.
Equinix says councils like Yarra City are increasingly turning to hybrid cloud technology as an alternative to deliver services, in the face of changing expectations and new operational demands.
Earlier this year Equinix was named Data Center Service Provider of the Year at Frost - Sullivan's 2016 Asia Pacific ICT Awards.