To meet the rising demand for additional capacity and interconnection services, Equinix, Inc. has announced plans to invest US$42 million to expand its SY4 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre.
An indicator of Equinix’s continuous investment into the market, the phase two expansion will host an additional 1,500 cabinets, bringing the total capacity to 3,000, with a total usable floor space of more than 12,500 square metres (130,000 square feet).
Opened in August 2016, SY4 is strategically located in Alexandria, four kilometres from Sydney’s central business district. The expansion will increase its current capacity of 1,500 cabinets to a total capacity of 3,000 cabinets.
With an investment of US$42 million, phase two of the SY4 expansion is the latest in a series of expansions across Asia-Pacific, with other recent expansions in Melbourne, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In a recent Equinix survey of 1,000 global IT decision makers, it was found that Australia is one of the leading countries pursuing interconnection. This drive towards greater interconnection makes a significant bottom-line impact on businesses and markets, as 40 percent of interconnected Australian companies have realized more than US$10 million (AUD 14 million) in revenue opportunities and cost savings.
Some 86 percent of enterprises use the cloud and, with key cloud players like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, Australia is already the largest Infrastructure-as-a-Service market in the Asia-Pacific region.
The expansion ensures there is capacity available to new and existing Equinix customers for interconnection. As Australia’s most interconnected data centre campus, Equinix’s Sydney campus (SY1, SY2, SY3 and SY4), together with its Melbourne facility (ME1), allows its customers to access its unrivalled business and cloud ecosystems.
Across Equinix’s Australia data centres, there are over 725 companies, including over 155 Network Service Providers (NSPs) and more than 275 Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), providing customers with the most interconnected group of data centres in Australia.
Equinix’s Sydney campus is the only place where companies can set up direct links to the continent’s two largest Internet peering points, in addition to key submarine cable systems, including the Southern Cross Cable Head, the PIPE Pacific Cable, and the soon to be launched Hawaiki cable which will terminate in SY4.
Equinix has dark fibre connectivity between its four data centres in the Sydney campus. This seamless campus environment enables rapid connectivity between all sites.
In total, Equinix has 29 IBX data centres in Asia-Pacific. Today Equinix's total global footprint covers 179 IBX data centers across 44 markets.