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Intel makes green data centre push in MoU with new regional alliance

Tony Chan | July 28, 2008 | 0 Comments

The world’s biggest computer chip maker, Intel, will share its technology and expertise in deploying green data centres with a newly formed regional alliance of data centre operators.

In an unprecedented deal announced last week, four data centre operators in South East Asia have formed an alliance to offer one-stop services across their facilities in their respective countries. The four data centre operators in the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) includes 1-Net Singapore, Malaysia’s The AIMS Asia Group, Vietnam’s CMC Telecom and Thailand’s TCC Technology.

The four companies have a combined 500,000 sq.ft of data centre space and a projected annual turnover of S$100 million by 2009. The DCA will establish network and systems interoperability as well as peering across the facilities and offer value added managed services such as Digital Asset Management and delivery systems, as well as common SLAs. The Alliance is expected to start operations by end-of-2008.

As part of the MoU between Intel and the Alliance, the chipmaker will share both its technology and experience with members of the alliance, according to Subra Shankhar, Intel’s director of enterprise solutions sales in APAC.

“Intel is a leader in driving energy efficiency at the silicon level across its portfolio for many years,” Shankhar said. “Under the scope of the MoU, the Alliance will not only have access to the latest Intel products, but will also be given early access to our technology and product roadmaps, so they can better plan their deployments.”

Intel will also share it experience in driving energy efficiency inside its own data centres with the Alliance.

“Intel has 130 data centres and we are in the process of reducing that number to less than 10,” he said. “In the process, we have developed best practices in building out energy efficient data centres. This experience will be shared with the Alliance members.”

Lastly, Intel will also bring to the MoU its expertise in improving utilization of infrastructure inside the data centres. By working with its software partners, the company was able to increase the utilization inside its data centres by 11% over a 6-8 month period through virtualization, Shankhar revealed. “This knowledge will also be shared with Alliance members.”

There is no commercial relationship between Intel and the Alliance, but Shankhar adds that Intel will be make itself available to help Alliance members in different aspect of data centre operations, including data centre design and helping the members’ customers deploy systems inside the facilities.