Global Crossing Opens Amsterdam Data Centre

Amsterdam base for IT solutions to European clients

The newly-constructed centre will provide virtual hosting solutions and hosted managed services for European customers. These services allow clients to manage IT projects while reducing costs associated with physical servers, such as power, space and cooling.
Services also include monitoring, backup, security, server management and storage solutions.

Available Amsterdam real estate

Based in New Jersey, Global Crossing (GC) has had operations in Amsterdam for more than a decade, and the company had acquired technical real estate in the area.

“This was one of the main reasons for our new-build centre in Slotervaart,” said Raymond Vredenburg, GC’s director of product management data centre services in Europe.

Top four in Europe

“Amsterdam is one of the four largest markets for data centre services in Europe, so it was a logical next step.

 “It’s a very strong market here, with lots of network activity and technical customers, and a very important hub for internet services.”

High level skills available

The opening of the Amsterdam data centre means GC now has 17 data centres strategically located to provide services to more than 700 customers.

The new Amsterdam centre will be staffed by seven people, 24/7. “Amsterdam is relatively easier to find highly-qualified technical people in, with the language skills we need as a global company,” said Vredenburg.

Strong growth predicted

This is the first step in creating a presence here, he added, “and there is lots of room for growth - and we do forecast strong growth for the next 3-4 years.”

According to Gartner, the global market for web hosting, including data centre services, is projected to increase in size from $28.87 billion in 2008 to $51.45 billion in 2013.