Data Electronics has invested €2.5m into expanding its Kilcarbery-based data centre by an additional 13,000sq ft, bringing total capacity at the data centre to 21,000sq ft.
The company has said Vodafone will be the first major company to be hosted at the new facility following Data Electronics’ securing of a multimillion euro contract to house part of its voice and data infrastructure.
Established 30 years ago, Data Electronics is Ireland’s oldest data centre operator. The company has invested €13m in its facility over the past five year and has grown its staff base by 40pc. The company’s CEO Maurice Mortell said its network operations centre can monitor and support businesses’ IT needs on a 24/7 basis for a fraction of the cost of running it themselves in-house.
It is understood the expansion is the first of its type since the downturn in the data centre market in 2000, indicating resurgence in demand by businesses to support and service their IT infrastructure needs.
In an interview with siliconrepublic.com, Mortell explained the company now operates five data centres in Ireland: two in Dublin City, one in Ballycoolin in west Dublin; the newly expanded Kilcarbery data centre and a data centre in Belfast.
Data Electronics’ acquired the Kilcarbery operation from Inflow, one of the many data centre operators that came to Ireland at the height of the dotcom boom but went out of business when the market hit a downturn.
“What’s happening is the whole data centre model has matured,” explained Mortell. “What was planned for four or five years ago has come to fruition and demand for data centres has increased. There is a well-educated business market out there that knows what it wants and the value of outsourcing IT to a provider.”
Mortell said in terms of plans by the Government to build its own data centre to cater for decentralisation, the Government should look for available capacity in the data centre market before making a costly investment. “The infrastructure is there to support it. Investing in a new building and paying for the management of it would be costly in terms of taxpayers’ money. It should look at the available infrastructure in the marketplace.”
Present at the opening of the newly expanded data centre was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Michaél Martin TD who said: “The world-class services on offer by Data Electronics acts as a strong magnet of attraction for further investment, both from Irish companies seeking to expand into new areas of opportunity and overseas companies seeking to service their European or global headquarter operations from Ireland.
“The availability of facilities such as the Data Electronics operation has and will continue to be hugely influential on the decisions by many world-leading companies to locate their operations in Ireland,” the Minister said.
By John Kennedy
