Andrew Kirker (CDC Data Centres)
CDC Data Centres has officially opened two new hyperscale data centres in the Auckland suburbs of Silverdale and Hobsonville.
Managing director Andrew Kirker said the data centres offered a significant step-change in New Zealand data centre operations, security, resilience and facilities.
“CDC continues to innovate and set the standard for world-class data centre services, supporting our clients’ critical digital infrastructure for the long term,” Kirker said.
“We work very closely with our partners and customers to understand their needs now and into the future, and design and build centres that accommodate these very specific requirements.”
CDC had already welcomed a range of partners, including Vodafone New Zealand, Vector, Kordia and Feenix, who were servicing their customers’ IT needs from within the new data centres.
Kordia chief digital officer Aaron Olphert said the new facilities would meet many of the core requirements businesses are looking for when it comes to digital transformation.
“Business trends and demands are shaping what our customers need from their cloud strategy," he said. "Alongside critical requirements, such as availability and performance, the data centres present other advantages for modern business situations – such as reduced environmental impact, data sovereignty, and resilience, which is key for any governance, risk, and continuity planning."
The move was was complemented by Kordia's "best connected" strategy, Olphert said. This provided direct connections to workloads that supported the speed, security, performance and resilience needed to take advantage of hyperscale data centres.
CDC described the facilities as the largest and most secure of their type in New Zealand. They had been built specifically for national critical infrastructure providers and other organisations requiring the highest levels of security, availability and connectivity.
The data centres are several times the size of existing facilities in the New Zealand, CDC said, and were built to comply with the highest levels of government security accreditation and to ensure New Zealand data sovereignty.
Credit: Supplied “These are New Zealand’s first hyperscale data centres,” Kirker said. “The unique fit-for-purpose, ‘building within a building’ data centre design has the most modern and highest quality equipment and features.
"These include a powerful interconnected ecosystem, guaranteed 100 per cent availability and comprehensive physical and procedural security."
These would enable partners and customers to scale without limits and continue to move seamlessly and competitively to hybrid cloud operations, he said.
“The strong interest we’ve received from the sector has been very pleasing and reflects the vital role hyperscale is and will continue to play in managing, securing and storing data.”
The data centres also set a new "clean and green" benchmark, continuing CDC’s long-standing commitment to sustainability. From the first day of operation the data centres were powered by renewable and carboNZero certified electricity, Kirker said.
“Our innovative closed-loop cooling system means we operate with almost zero water consumption for cooling, ensuring vital water resources are available to the community," he said.
CDC, which is nearly half-owned by NZX-listed Infratil, stole a start on many of its potential competitors when it announced its construction plans in mid 2020.
The datacentres were picked to cost NZ$80-$100 million to develop and would have the capacity in the near term of up to a total of 20MW and additional vacant land to be progressively developed to support expected demand.
Microsoft, AWS, DCI Data Centres, T4 Group and Datagrid all announced their own development plans while incumbent Datacom invested $52 million to upgrade four of its existing facilities.
Earlier this month, Google announced it would also create a local cloud region but the indications are it will use another provider's facilities.
