Savvis, Digital Realty to launch Hong Kong data center in 2013
By Carol Ko 10-Apr-2012
Mark Smith, Savvis and Kris Kumar, Digital Realty
Data center solutions providers Savvis and Digital Realty announced their plan to launch a new data center facility in Hong Kong in Q1 2013.
This follows the announcement of a joint venture (JV) formed between the two companies to acquire a property in the Hong Kong Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate, which will provide co-location and managed services.
Digital Realty and Savvis formed the JV to tap the market opportunities of "the burgeoning cloud and IT services market in Hong Kong," said Mark Smith (pictured, left), managing director, Savvis Asia and Kris Kumar (pictured, right), senior vice president and regional head, Asia Pacific, Digital Realty Trust.
"By combining our complementary expertise in providing enterprise-class data center solutions, we hope to provide our global customers a one-stop-shop for data center services in Hong Kong," said Smith and Kumar in a joint statement.
According to Kumar, the new data center in Hong Kong will be designed around the Digital Realty's POD Architecture, which is a modular data center design approach that incorporates natural power and mechanical breakpoints, and uses standard bill of materials such as generators, switchboards and transformers.
In an interview with Asia Cloud Forum, Savvis and Digital Realty unveil further details about their JV, and their views on Hong Kong as an "under-served" data center market in the world. Read excerpts below:
Asia Cloud Forum: When will the Hong Kong data center launch its co-location and managed services?
"Hong Kong has had a high demand for data center services from the financial sector and traditionally, providers have had difficulty with the geography and high cost of real estate, due to competing development interests."
-- Kris Kumar, Digital Realty |
Smith and Kumar: As stated in the news release, the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. We expect, subject to certain conditions, to launch the facility in Q1 2013.
Do Savvis and Digital Realty have other partnerships/ joint ventures elsewhere in Asia Pacific?
Smith and Kumar: We do not have any other formal joint venture in the region to date, but continue to partner, like we both do with other similar companies, in many markets around the globe.
Why does Savvis choose to partner with Digital Realty instead of Rackspace, Equinix or local cloud service providers in Hong Kong?
Smith: Our long-time global and strategic relationship with Digital Realty were keys to this joint venture. They are a proven data services provider, construct many top tier data centers, and offer facility management. Their capabilities complement Savvis' services, and provide a platform from which Savvis can provide our managed and cloud services solutions.
When this particular opportunity presented itself, both companies were excited about the prospect of not just expanding our Asia footprints, but specifically entering the exciting and emerging Hong Kong Science Park area.
Kumar: Digital Realty has formed partnerships with various players globally. We enjoy very good partnering relationships in many forms and business models across multiple markets. Our partnership with Savvis in Tseung Kwan O has been an opportunistic result of market forces and customer demands for particular product sets, in a very buoyant market.
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