Rackspace has moved its managed cloud platform into Digital Realty’s new Sussex datacentre

Rackspace has launched its latest UK datacentre this week, moving its cloud platform into datacentre giant Digital Realty’s new facility Crawley, West Sussex facility.

Digital Realty said the datacentre is among the most environmentally friendly in the UK. It delivers Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.15 and deploys ‘indirect outside air’ cooling technology instead of mechanical cooling, which according to the company means the overhead energy required to operate the datacentre has been cut by almost 80 per cent.

Rackspace said the 130,000 square foot datacentre will house its managed cloud services.

“This data centre is the epitome of intelligent 21st century infrastructure engineering.  We partnered with industry leaders to design and deliver one of the most environmentally friendly and reliable data centres in Europe. Our customers depend on us for their mission critical managed IT services and this new data centre furthers our commitment to delivering world class services to those customers,” said Mark Roenigk, chief operating officer of Rackspace.

“This is our tenth global datacentre and this expansion will enable us to grow with our customers for many years to come.  We are proud of the energy efficiency achieved with the innovative design that will become the starting point for boosting the adoption of more efficient technologies in the UK and Europe.  We are honoured to operate and provide a positive impact in the Crawley community,” Roenigk said.

The facility provides 6MW capacity across two halls, which will eventually double to four in the near future with a total 12MW capacity, and was built to house up to 50,000 servers. It’s also Open Compute-compliant, so it can house Open Compute Project-based rack designs, which no-doubt factored into Rackspace’s decision to move into the facility; the company is an active participant in the open source hardware project.

“With the addition of the Crawley site, the Digital Realty – Rackspace collaboration, which began in 2011, has been extended to a third continent. We are delighted to see Rackspace establish its new managed cloud data centre with such outstanding eco-credentials,” said William Stein, Digital Realty’s chief executive officer said.

“With competition growing for facility services across the UK and Europe, we are pleased Rackspace choose Digital Realty as a provider to collaborate on this bespoke facility in Crawley,” he added.