EvoSwitch is promoting its Amsterdam data center as the gateway to Europe
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — When North American web hosting providers think of expanding their services to Europe, many think of the UK first. Colocation provider EvoSwitch (www.evoswitch.com) is trying to change this, by suggesting that Amsterdam is a more cost-effective alternative and is what managing director Eric Boonstra calls “the gateway to Europe” for hosting providers.
With a data center in Amsterdam, it is no wonder EvoSwitch is an advocate for expansion in the region, but Boonstra offers several reasons for web hosts to consider it a London alternative. He says many North Americans look at London first, for several reasons, including history and language.
“They don’t really think about it,” he says. “But London is the first choice.”
Boonstra says people may not know that Amsterdam is important to the European market and is a key point for transatlantic fiber.
“If you look at the market in terms of Internet users in Europe, Amsterdam is the eighth or ninth largest market,” he says. “[For] Internet traffic, we’re number one with Frankfurt in Europe. The reason is that Amsterdam is the key hub for the Internet connection for network traffic in central and Eastern Europe from the UK and North America.”
Amsterdam, according to Boonstra, offers the same, if not better, data center quality as London but at a much lower cost. Government legislation has made London more expensive in the last couple of years, he says, because the government has seen the amount of energy data centers consume.
“Energy prices have become sky-high in England,” he says. “A lot of data centers have to deal with the high prices of energy and the prices in Amsterdam are much lower, I think because the government legislation is a little bit easier than in the UK.”
With its data center at the border of Amsterdam, Boonstra says EvoSwitch has access to a lot of space and a lot of available power for much lower costs than data centers in London and city-center Amsterdam. Evoswitch’s data center is positioned on top of the Internet hub, and currently has almost 40 carriers in its meeting room.
Curently at approximately 108,000 square feet, EvoSwitch’s data center can be built out to approximately 431,000 square feet.
According to Boonstra, the data center has the capacity for 60mW of power, though it only uses 8mW because of the company’s commitment to energy efficiency.
With a variety of web hosting companies as customers, including Hostway and Leaseweb, Boonstra says the data center enables growing companies to scale up easily. He says companies only pay for what they use.
“You can start with a couple of racks and you can build up to a couple hundred racks,” he says.
Carbon neutral since its inception in 2007, EvoSwitch has focused on energy efficiency in its data center, something Boonstra thinks will make the company a cost-leader in years to come.
“I think every data center should be reliable and safe but we thought, if you’re green, you will be the cost-leader at the end and you’ll be the leader in the market because energy is your biggest cost,” he says.
EvoSwitch has already purchased its power for 2012 and 2013 because the price will only increase.
“I think the most important thing is that legislation all over the world, especially where the Internet hubs are and where the major data centers are, will get tighter and tighter,” he says. In Amsterdam in particular, the government has mandated that new data centers have a maximum PUE of 1.3.
“If you are very energy efficient you will spend millions of euros less a year than your competitors. These millions of euros you can spend on security, on quality and customers,” he says.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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