DigiPlex received the prestigious title of the Enterprise Data Center Award in recognition of its new Norwegian facility which it named as the best enterprise-class data centre forming the IT backbone of many of the world’s largest organisations. The ceremony took place at the Lancaster Hotel in London.  

Gisle M Eckhoff, CEO of DigiPlex, says, “We’re delighted to have all the hard work that went into designing and building our advanced Fetsund facility recognised. It is especially pleasing to be recognised for exceptional innovation in such a competitive field. At DigiPlex we are fully committed to providing customers with an enabling framework of outstanding service together with strong eco-credentials - and see these prestigious awards as a valued acknowledgement of our approach to provide a ‘best in class’ data centre.”  

A new type of data centre with an innovative design

DigiPlex’s award win featured the company’s design, construction, and operation of the 4,200m² data centre at Fetsund, near Oslo in Norway, which it owns and operates, and which opened earlier in 2015.

The centre was created to meet the exacting needs of EVRY, the largest IT services provider in Norway and the second largest in the Nordic region. EVRY sought to consolidate its operations in a state-of-the-art data centre within 15 months to save money and improve the resilience of its operations.

DigiPlex’s response was rapid: within the proposed timeframe it had successfully modified EVRY’s design concept and built the centre. In order to raise funds rapidly to complete the project, DigiPlex issued a bond on the Oslo stock exchange, rather than use equity or bank debt, making it the first and only data centre in the world to have had its construction financed by the issue of publicly traded bonds.

Today, EVRY is the anchor tenant in the data centre, whose three-storey, air-cooled facilities are designed to accommodate an IT density of 2kW/m2 and to deliver a PUE of 1.1. The first phase of the facility opened on schedule in January 2015, followed by an official opening ceremony in April 2015 attended by Tine Sundtoft, Norway’s Minister for Climate and Environment. She called for an expansion of the country’s data centre industry, given its renewable energy sources and cool climate, which help lower data centre energy consumption and costs.

Amongst other innovations, the Fetsund data centre also features advanced Air-to-Air indirect evaporative cooling technology (a DatacenterDynamics award winner in 2012), which contributes to its low PUE.

To benefit the local community, DigiPlex is working alongside the mayor of Fetsund to help the town become a digital knowledge centre. It will work with Lillestrøm Centre of Expertise, a local business organisation, to attract more knowledge-based businesses to the area. There are additional plans in place to work with local schools to help children become enthused about a digital career.

On 1st January 2016, DigiPlex will open its newest data centre in Stockholm, built to very similar specifications to the award-winning Fetsund data centre.