(c)iStock.com/Tuomas Kujansuu
IP EXPO Never mind Brexit – London-based Volta Data Centres says an opportunity is afoot after launching another floor of its data centre site.
The vendor, which operates off a single site in central London, says enquiries have gone up by around 50% since the referendum result in June. Jonathan Arnold, Volta managing director, explains: “I think those [enquiries] that are linked to Brexit are very much looking at planning for the future because there is clearly still that unknown of what will happen next year.
“There are customers looking at their options, so that [they think] ‘if we put this in central London, we know that’s definitely in the UK, especially looking at us because we’re that single site, they know that it can’t be anywhere else. I do think there is an element of planning out there, people working out what to do before they make some decisions next year.”
Getting the expansion and the customer interest alongside it is music to Volta’s ears – the company says they had 40 serious leads from last year’s IP EXPO closing “a few” of them, and hoping for similar this year – yet the company is also focusing on European strategy.
In another announcement, Volta is forging a partnership with Luxembourg-based LuxConnect; staying true to its UK base while acknowledging a European opportunity. The deal was announced at a reception held in the Luxembourg Embassy earlier this week, with the two companies sharing carriers in BT, Cogent, Colt, Level 3 and Verizon.
“We’ve been talking to each other for quite a while – pre-Brexit, may I add – so it’s very much [the idea that] we are a single site data centre in London, they’re four sites but they’re all in Luxembourg,” says Arnold.
“It’s kind of natural we’re getting enquiries from customers saying do you know anyone in Europe, they’re getting equal enquiries…we don’t compete, we’re both pure play colocation, we don’t offer managed services which is absolutely key to us, and in the conversation that we had, we have similar cultures between the two businesses so it makes sense to form an alliance and see where that takes us.”
For the new additions to the company’s space in London, Arnold says Volta will be moving customers over in the coming two to three weeks, with capacity of between 370 and 400 racks depending on the layout. Naturally, the Brexit referendum result and the uptick as a result was somewhat unexpected, but Arnold is philosophical. “We’re not sure next year what’s going to happen, although if it carries on from this year we’re definitely seeing quite significant growth for us as a business,” he says.
“We’ve got space and availability for customers to move in very quickly, so we’ll just see what happens.”