Macquarie Telecom and Dell greenfield data centre sites added to AGIMO panel

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 09 February 2012 13:38

Macquarie Telecom's 'greenfield' data centre site in Fairbairn ACT has been added to the Federal Government's data centre facilities panel, even though Macquarie has not yet committed to building a data centre on the site. Also added is a site owned by Dell at Hume in the ACT.

Also on the panel is a 'greenfield' facility at Macquarie Telecom's North Ryde data centre site, where there is potential for another data centre in addition to the $60m data centre now under construction. All three sites were put forward in the initial data centre facilities panel tender in 2010.

AGIMO established the data centre migration services panel and data centre facilities panel following release of the Australian Government Data Centre Strategy 2010-25 in March 2010. AGIMO announced in August 2011 that the data centre facilities panel would be expanded to include greenfield sites, saying that more information would be provided later.

Government CIO Ann Seward, writing on the AGIMO blog in September 2011, announced that Australian Data Centres (Mitchell, ACT); Enterprise Data Corporation (Bella Vista, NSW); Fujitsu (Greystanes, NSW and Fyshwick, ACT); Global Switch (Ultimo, NSW); Macquarie Telecom (two sites at North Ryde, NSW) and Metronode (Derrimut, VIC and Mitchell, ACT) had been added to the panel as greenfield sites.

"Greenfield sites provide more potential data centre space to the panel, allowing demand to be met throughout the panel's lifespan. Agencies procuring data centre facilities from the panel will enter into 10-year leases, with an option to extend the lease for five years," she said.

According to the latest list posted on the AGIMO web site this week, Macquarie's first Ryde data centre and Metronode's Derrimut centre have moved off the greenfield list and are now listed as "available now or will be available in 2012." Dell Australia (Hume ACT) and Macquarie's Fairbairn facility have been added to the list of greenfield facilities.

Macquarie Telecom said that plans for its Fairbairn site - dubbed Intellicentre 4 (IC4) - are for a minimum of 4MW and 2000sqm of data halls. "IC4 will be built to the same world-class standard as Macquarie Telecom's new first facility at North Ryde (IC2), now under construction, Macquarie Telecom has also developed plans for its Stage 2 data centre at its North Ryde campus (IC3) to provide future capacity with its characteristic world-class security and performance for future growth," the company said.

It said it was seeking anchor tenants for IC3 and IC4, as well as additional anchor tenants for IC2.