eircom today announced the company has signed a multi-million contract for a state-of-the-art managed services data centre located in Clonshaugh, County Dublin. The contract represents an investment of more than ?100m in the purpose built next generation datacentre, which will offer the most advanced hosting environment available in Ireland today. The 125,000 sq. ft centre, set to open in July 2008, represents a major boost to Ireland?s attractiveness as an investment location for international technology-intensive companies.
The centre is expected to draw significant interest from a wide range of Irish and International companies seeking to improve the management of critical IT systems including more effective risk management and improved disaster recovery arrangements. Computer systems that will reside in the centre typically run essential applications that support customer?s businesses, including SAP, e-mail, databases and transactional systems.
Commenting on the investment, Cathal Magee, MD, eircom retail, said, "Business has changed: customers today are far more reliant on their IT systems and their company network to perform vital functions. Plus, the ICT skills shortage continues to bite. The new eircom managed services data centre tackles both these realities at once - customers get the ideal environment for their critical systems, as well as access to high-value technical specialists who are skilled at managing the hardware and software that businesses require.
"To stay competitive in the knowledge economy, Ireland absolutely must have facilities like these that redefine the state-of-the-art for hosting and managed services and provide the capacity for expansion that businesses demand. This new centre builds on eircom's long track record of providing market-leading solutions in this key area, and is in line with our ongoing commitment to invest in innovation for the benefit of our customers."
The new eircom centre is equipped with the latest power, cooling, fire suppression and biometric security measures to protect customers' systems, including those using new, power-hungry hardware such as blade servers. The centre has been designed to be energy efficient, minimising power consumption by using the ambient external temperature to assist in cooling. The datacentre is also making extensive use of the latest technology advances to effectively use ?technology to manage technology?, including intelligent utilities for systems set-up, monitoring, alerting and trouble ticketing.