This week sees the launch of DataVita, a new business which will operate from Fortis, Scotland’s largest and most energy efficient purpose built datacentre. Fortis will open at Newhouse, Lanarkshire in May 2016. DataVita will offer a range of innovative, agile datacentre and cloud services. These will be aimed at private and public sector customers who are looking to store their data securely while reducing the financial and environmental costs. The ?200m facility is situated just off the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is Scotland’s first commercial co-location datacentre to utilise the latest technology which harnesses Scotland’s cool climate to deliver the highest levels of power efficiency and is powered by 100% renewable energy sources. The 100,000 sqft, 2000-rack facility is expected to create around 50 high-value skilled jobs over the next five years.
The DataVita fit out programme is under way and the site is available for customer tours from now. DataVita expects to be signing up customers from as early as November 2015.
The company plans to target the public sector, healthcare and life sciences organisations and large companies, highlighting the potential for a 40% reduction in power costs, up to 95% reduction in carbon emissions, and greatly improved security as the main business benefits. DataVita is also creating an ecosystem of partners that will allow Scotland’s established IT channel to deliver high value services to their customers.
Gareth Lush, Commercial Director at DataVita said: “Scotland is most definitely ready for a next-generation datacentre, and DataVita will put Scotland on the global datacentre map. We have a thriving IT industry but we are lacking the datacentres to support this fully, resulting in valuable investment and jobs going outside of Scotland. DataVita will offer Scotland’s first “cloud enabled” datacentre that will allow customers to easily mix traditional datacentre services with the cloud and help our customers meet security and regulatory requirements. Planning permission has been granted for other new datacentres in Scotland in the past, but it is important to highlight that Fortis is already a reality – the building is complete, our fit out works are in the final stage, and the latest technology is already in place.
“The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) at Fortis is 1.18, meaning that the average public sector organisation could save around ?200,000 annually on energy costs alone by moving away from trying to run inefficient in-house computer rooms to hosting their IT equipment with DataVita – and that’s before you look at other potential savings from space and staff time being freed up.”
“It is also unprecedented in terms of quality and security – it will be the first datacentre in Scotland to achieve Tier III certification from The Uptime Institute for design, construction and sustainable operations.”
Polly Purvis, CEO of ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technologies industry, said: "DataVita has ambitious plans to harness renewable energy for its new data centre. The combination of renewable energy resources, political stability and naturally cool ambient temperatures make Scotland a compelling location for secure data storage, and it’s good to see the market expanding.”
