June 19, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Data center operator EvoSwitch (evoswitch.com) announced on Thursday that is has successfully completed the second phase of its Amsterdam data center expansion, adding an additional 2,000 square meters of space.
The expansion is the culmination of selling out the first phase of its data center and a continuous demand for rack space. Among those customers include European network and data center services company Infonet Nederland, who placed 42 cabinets in April, and Leaseweb, who placed 500 racks in March.
EvoSwitch spent nine million euros on this second phase, which adds 2,000 square meters of additional floor surface to the 2,000 square meters that is already available.
The capital-intensive nature of this project has led EvoSwitch to deliver the expansion in a series of consecutive phases, with the third phase expected to start towards the end of 2008.
"A lot of interest has been shown in our green data center in the past year," says Laurens Rosenthal, innovation manager at EvoSwitch. "As a result, we were nearing our maximum capacity. Fortunately the expansion means that we have ample space again to serve our customers."
EvoSwitch claims that its new rack space consumes even less power and offers an increased green power capacity of five to 20 kW, which can partly be attributed to the more advanced cooling technologies the company used in the first building phase.
Both phases deployed Free Cooling, a cooling concept that EvoSwitch says uses outside air instead of compressors.
The new cooling system has an average year Energy Efficiency Ratio of nine. The EER represents the ratio between the cooling energy and the energy needed to generate the cooling energy, and the higher the EER, the better.
EcoSwitch says with the second phase, energy-saving rate is expected to increase even further. The company has upgraded to 19-inch racks, which offers a higher power capacity per rack and thus facilitating medium and high density hosting.
Rosenthal says that many market parties, including a number of large companies have already expressed their interest.
EvoSwitch has long promoted itself as an environmentally-conscious data center operator. The company is a member of the Green Grid (thegreengrid.org), as well as works with the Climate Control Group to compensate for its carbon dioxide emissions through biogas and tree-planting projects.
