Global News: HP, E3, Lloyds, Microsoft, MTN

Here’s a roundup of recent headlines from the data center industry around the world:

• HP launches Sydney data center.  HP has been given the green light for a $100 million facility in Eastern Creek, NSW, west of Sydney Australia.  A single story data center is planned for the site but planning documents state that "the layout and arrangement of infrastructure and services on the site will allow for future development for the purposes of a second data center building." CB Richard Ellis conducted the preliminary environmental assessment study for the project.  HP also recently secured a $300 million technology services agreement with Spain-based FCC.  HP will provide data center services and end-user workplace management for the entire FCC organization.
• Customers describe "chaotic" migration in Brisbane - Customers of E3 Networks have described "chaotic" scenes over the weekend as the company attempted to migrate customer equipment from its racks in Brisbane's Wharf Street datacentre to a recently constructed alternative at Milton. The data centre migration appears to be the result of stalled discussions between E3 and Wharf Street's new owners, NextDC. From ITNews.
• Lloyds TSB Eyes Data Center Project in Scotland - Lloyds TSB intends to pursue plans for a £200m data centre in Dumfriesshire. It will hold two public information sessions this week to outline its plans for farmland near Ecclefechan. The site was promoted by Internet Villages International, which secured outline planning permission in 2010. From BBC News
• MTN showcases data center in Ghana: Telecommunications provider MTN has established a $250 million data center, the first of its kind in Ghana.  MTN will boost the quality of voice and data services for its customers in the new data center, a third for MTN after South Africa and Iran.  Mazen Mroue, the Chief Information Officer of MTN said, “as an organization, it is important that our employees get to understand the progress we are making in building excellent infrastructure providing the capacity to offer best services to our customers."
• Microsoft may invest in Indonesia.  The Jakarta Globa reports that Microsoft is looking to invest $2.5 billion in Indonesia to develop cloud computing systems.  Sutanto Hartono, chief executive of Microsoft Indonesia, said it was partnering with Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), Astra Graphia Information Technology, cloud-computing infrastructure firm Greenview and Infynis System Indonesia for the initiative.
• Global Crossing offers 40G option. Global Crossing (GLBC) announced that it has upgraded the terrestrial capacity of its Wavelength Service to 40 Gigabits per second (Gbps). With increases in telepresence, business continuity, video on demand, video surveillance, and voice over IP the capacity upgrades will be available for terrestrial routes in North America, Europe and the UK. "Our enhanced network performance and route diversity guarantees improve network resiliency and increase service level agreements, while giving customers more control and flexibility to address ever-changing network and business dynamics," said John Dobbins, vice president of Transport and Infrastructure Product Management at Global Crossing. Comprehensive network performance SLAs for 'propagation delay' on wavelengths are also being offered. Propagation delay is the round-trip time required for a signal to travel the distance between two Global Crossing points of presence. "Recent demand for higher speed 40G and 40GigE services is a natural progression from today's mid-speed wavelength services driven by a wave of bandwidth intensive applications," stated Dan O'Connell, research director at Gartner.