Hidden and Humming: Australia's Data Centre Network

Hidden and Humming: Australia's Data Centre Network

“The landscape will be peppered with thousands, if not tens of thousands of these micro centres around Australia and New Zealand over the next decade.”

 

That’s according to Schneider Electric vice president of secure power for data power, Joe Craparotta. In October 2022, he told the Australian Financial Review that the region’s appetite for data storage and processing speed would continue to accelerate at an incredible rate over the coming three to five years. 

 

But this appetite must be satiated by some substantial development in the form of an enormous data centre network — thousands of which are being scattered across cities, towns and everywhere in between.

 

As TMG specialises in the installation and testing of equipment that keeps these data centres running, we’re providing this article as a touchpoint to understand the depth and breadth of data centres in Australia. 

 

For any other information regarding OTDR and PIM testing, 10g/100g/400g testing and more, get in touch with our friendly team. 

 

What is a Data Centre?

 

A data centre is a physical facility which organisations can use to contain critical infrastructure such as routers, servers, switches, backups, storage systems and more. 

 

In essence, they are the digital home of any enterprise which can’t afford to store all of these precious resources on site. 

 

It can also be far more secure and cost-efficient for a business to store such infrastructure in a data centre where fire suppression, security, ventilation and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) are optimised and maintained (as compared to on site).

 

Data centres have become increasingly important to any business with an online presence as the collection and management of customer data has become pivotal to success. 

 

Why Do We Need More Data Centres?

 

The undeniable growth in data centres has been driven by a handful of factors. A move away from traditional offices and toward remote working arrangements has played a big part, as rising office costs rule out the option of onsite data storage for many businesses. 

 

The physical footprint of data centres is also impacted by the need to constantly run cloud-based technologies, artificial intelligence, and communications across global businesses.

 

A report from CBRE — a global leader in commercial real estate investment — released a report in 2022 which found a 29% increase in interest toward the data centre sector. This validates our suspicions that data centre demands are indeed on the rise.

 

Australia’s Biggest Data Centres

 

So, you may be asking yourself, “Where are they?”

 

Due to their backend nature, data centres don’t have to be visually appealing or even well signposted. This means they’ll often lurk behind chain link fences, in storage facilities, or as close to the local power generation facility as possible. 

 

That is, you’re somewhat likely to pass one on most days without ever noticing it. 

 

If you are interested to know their exact locations however — perhaps you’ve been tasked with tracking and testing some equipment — there are some helpful resources online. 

 

Datacentremap.com is a terrific resource which maps all 137 major data centres across Australia’s metropolitan hubs. 

 

Sydney (31) is home to the most, followed closely by Melbourne (30) and Brisbane (22). 

 

In fact, Sydney is home to six of the 10 largest data centres in Australia, as measured by the team at Fasterweb.

 

The largest is Equinix SY1 which houses 7.2MW of rack power on more than 3000 square metres — also making it one of the most network dense sights in Australia. This facility serves over 179 providers from all around the world, connecting Australia with pivotal trading partners. 

 

The largest in Melbourne is the NextDC M1 data centre, located in Port Melbourne, and offering a 100% uptime guarantee. This is the only facility in Victoria which operates at the industry-leading NABERS 5-star rating for energy efficiency. 

 

Brisbane’s NextDC B1 data centre is the sixth largest in Australia and connects to cloud platforms such as AWS, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. 

 

Contact TMG

If you need to know more about data centres and their importance to the world’s ongoing digital transformation, get in touch with TMG. Our friendly team has all the information you need to stay on top of data developments and offer a more knowledgeable service to your own customers. 

Image Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/software-engineer-standing-beside-server-racks-1181354/