Colt wins “Innovation in a Medium Data Centre” award at the DCD awards 2012

It’s one thing to develop a product from scratch that you know can transform the business of data centres, but it’s another dimension to be recognised in the industry for it.

Some 4 years ago, our design and engineering team were determined to solve some key data centre issues that we could find no solution to on the market.

Our goal: transform how datacentres were designed, delivered and operated. We wanted to:

• Lower power costs
• Increase flexibility to meet business demand
• Deploy datacentres at the speed of business rather than datacentre years
• Eliminate expensive bespoke “one-off” builds
• Create a standard design to impact maintenance, efficiency, costs, resources, uptime with consistent quality
• Flexibility to dial-up or down depending on IT requirements
• Address health and safety on datacentre builds

In 2009 we built the first prototype of what we called the modular data centre. In 2010 we brought it to the market. And in the last 18 months:

• Delivered our first data centre to a customer site
• Delivered in England, Iceland, France and the Netherlands
• Achieved Uptime Institute Tier III design certification
• Achieved management and operations stamp of approval for two sites
• Analysts in 451 said Colt’s Modular Data Centre is the quintessential prefabricated datacenter 2.0 product
• Launched our next generation, future-proofed data centre the Colt ftec, built with flex technology
• Won awards from Data Centre Europe Awards, Information Age and now this from Datacentre Dynamics

So as we enter 2013, is it the awards and accolades that fill us with enthusiasm? A little I suppose, but what really excites us is our people; the dedication, the teamwork, the camaraderie that has gone into developing, delivering and operating our data centres all around Europe. Included in that is our customers, we work so closely with them during the process that we become one team, focused on successful delivery and maximised uptime.

Today we should not just celebrate our award win but also our colleagues and customers who make it all possible and worthwhile!