Equinix,the provider of network-neutral datacentres,is adding 4,000 square metres of datacentre space with an additional capacity for 1,400 cabinets at its London Slough LD5 International Business Exchange(IBX)datacentre.
Equinix will also add 130 dedicated business continuity trading desks to offer financial services companies emergency-trading capabilities.
The business continuity trading room(BCTR)will provide financial services customers with trading and trade-support capabilities with backup and recovery facilities to secure mission-critical trading operations.It also provides multiple monitors,specialised trading phones with voice recording and numerous market data feeds.
"Financial market participants and service providers are key growth drivers currently and they are experiencing growing regulatory pressure to put business-continuity capacity in place,"said Russell Poole,Equinix UK managing director.
As the colocation datacentre is based in Slough,it falls outside the London metropolitan area and will allow financial services firms in the City to comply with regulatory guidelines for backup,disaster recovery and business continuity of operations.The regulations require that the financial services companies'backup and DR sites are based outside the metropolitan area.
The LD5 facility offers"highly resilient and secure colocation facilities",added Poole.
This increase in capacity marks the third of four planned phases of the LD5 datacentre expansion,to meet market demand.Equinix launched the second phase of the expansion in July 2011 to add 4,000 square metres of datacentre space.
Once the fourth and final phase of the build-out is completed,LD5 will provide 16,000 square meters of customer space,with capacity for 5,600 cabinets in total,Poole said.
The LD5 facility was first opened in April 2010 and is built on the same campus as Equinix's existing LD4 IBX datacentre,also in Slough.The two facilities together offer customers access to more than 40 carriers of network services and low-latency diverse fibre routes into central London.
Customers using datacentre provided by telecommunication companies or ISPs cannot switch providers without physically moving the server to another location.Network-neutral datacentres are operated by third parties and allow customers to switch providers and use multiple providers.
Equinix customers include Google,Microsoft,Yahoo,Sony,Amazon,Electronic Arts and General Electric among others.
