PacNet has opened a new US$90 million data centre in Singapore, leveraging the country’s business-friendly environment, excellent connectivity and security to serve its customers here and around the Asia Pacific region.

The eight-storey, 155,000-square foot standalone facility in Paya Lebar is the first data centre in Singapore to receive a Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute. It is also designed in accordance with the Singapore Green Mark Scheme, which encourages data centres to adopt these energy-efficient designs, technologies and systems during the planning and design phase.

Speaking at the opening of the PacNet SGC2 Data Centre on 14 January, Ms Jaqueline Poh, Managing Director, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), said the addition of PacNet’s data centre was testimony to Singapore’s growing reputation as one of the key data centre hubs in the world. Besides PacNet, another company to site a data centre in Singapore recently was Google, which opened its facility here – one of Google’s first two data centres in Asia – on 11 December last year.

Singapore is recognised by the World Bank as being one of the easiest and the most conducive places to do business. There are more than 7,000 MNCs based in the country, putting themselves within seven-hour flight radius of half the world’s population.

Singapore is also the hub of Asia for Internet connectivity with an extensive network of submarine cable systems connecting the country to all the key global markets. Within the country, the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) offers ultra high-speed fibre broadband connectivity of up to 1 Gbps and is expected to lower domestic connectivity charges for data centres and boost productivity.

Safety and security is another reason for companies to site their data storage needs here, said Ms Poh. According to the 2013 Digital Realty report, 67 per cent of respondents considered Singapore the preferred locale for their companies to base their data centre needs due to security. The country is not situated near a plate boundary, reducing its risk to earthquakes. This is a key consideration for companies when sourcing for locations to site data centres.

Ms Poh said she was also pleased to note that PacNet has designed its data in accordance with the Green Mark Scheme, which was introduced by the Building and Construction Authority and IDA last year.

“As Singapore’s commercial data centre space is projected to increase by 50 per cent from 2010 to 2015, it is important to look at how to make our data centres more green and sustainable, given their reputation as heavy users of power.” Energy is estimated to make up about 50 per cent of operating costs for data centres.

With the Tier III certification by the Uptime Institute, the PacNet data centre also promises more than 99 per cent uptime and availability even when the infrastructure needs to undergo maintenance. This is especially important for clients with mission critical IT application needs. “This design certification proves that Tier III concepts may be applied in Singapore – an established data centre epicentre with unique characteristics,” said Mr Thomas Baehr, Senior Director of APAC Development of Uptime Institute.