LDeX Opens Second UK Data Centre In Manchester

Colocation data centre provider London Data Exchange (LDeX) is launching a data centre in Manchester that the company said shows the ‘strength and growth’ of its carrier neutral ambitions.

LDeX2 is built on a 20,000ft² facility in Trafford Park and will house network carriers and global Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), as well as offering 24/7 support for customers.

Q2 opening

LDeX said that confirmed on-net carriers will be announced in Q2, along with the opening. CEO of LDeX Rob Garbett said that the new data centre comes with an increased uptake of colo services in the UK. Garbutt said: “As a growing technological hub, Manchester is a great strategic fit for us in expanding our customer orientated datacentre portfolio.”

Research in 2014 from Synergy Research Group pointed to the UK being the largest colocation market in Europe. In Q1 2014, the UK accounted for 27 percent of colo revenues, followed by Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

Last year, the market leader was Equinix, closely followed by TelecityGroup and Interxion. Telehouse (KDDI) and Colt are the next largest players, though a long way behind the top three, said Synergy.

Synergy Research Group analyst John Dinsdale, said: “Despite the presence of all the major telcos in the European colocation market, the carrier neutral segment is far larger than the bandwidth provider segment.

“Clearly customers see benefits in having a choice of carriers and consequently the relatively open European market has enabled the growth of pan-European colocation specialists.”

Colo merger

However, there is set to be shift this year with a merger penned between providers Telecity and Interxion.

Telecity said the deal would bring “complementary strengths to fulfil the expanding product, service and geographic needs of our customers”.

Combined, both firms now have a net value of £600m. The firms cited demand for cloud services and data centres was the catalyst for the deal. Likely to be completed in the second half of 2015, the deal will result in the merged company surpassing Equinix in the EMEA colocation market, according to data from Synergy Research.

The data points towards the two data centre providers and the resulting company becoming the market leader in the UK and the Netherlands, the number two ranked retail colo provider in Spain and Switzerland, and the number three ranked operator in Germany and France.

Basing the research on third quarter 2014 figures, Synergy said that the merged Telecity/Interxion powerhouse would have a 15 percent share of the EMEA retail colocation market, compared to Equinix’s 9 percent.

LDeX2 data centre – Tech Specs

• Racks provided with A+B feeds as standard. With N+N UPS protection, rack power is reserved on 2 x diverse UPS strings for complete fail over capabilities. N+1 Diesel generator power is always on standby with 6,500 litres of fuel on site and 24/7 replenishment contracts in place.
• The site is surrounded by 2.5m fencing and comprehensive CCTV systems which report images to on-site security & a specialist third party monitoring centre for an additional layer of protection. Virtual tripwires, armed at certain times of the day, protect the boundaries and provide immediate intruder threat alerts to our security guards and send automatically generated images direct to the local police where a threat is identified. Facial recognition biometric systems and volumetric man-trap portals work with our access procedures to control secure access to all areas of the data centre.
• N+1 cooling resilience with up to 10kW cooling per rack. Bespoke cold aisle containment and the use of blanking plates ensure best practices is adhered to.

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