AT&T Expands Internet Data Centres In Europe

October 30, 2007; 10:11 AM

LONDON, U.K. -- AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced the expansion of its data centres in Europe, highlighted by the addition of over one-third more space to its London facility. The company also added to its centre in Amsterdam.

This expansion is part of a worldwide initiative by AT&T to expand its hosting operations which will see the extension of three other centres around the world and the addition of two new AT&T facilities in New Jersey, U.S. and Toronto, Canada.  This investment will help meet the growing global demand for application services, fully managed hosting, advanced monitoring, hosted storage, colocation and other services. 

Part of the company’s year-long expansion of its global data center footprint and $750 million investment in its international infrastructure announced earlier in the year, these expansions and additions will bring the total number of AT&T global Internet data centres to 38 and will broaden its total global footprint of hosting space to exceed 2.1 million square feet. 

Globally, AT&T has added to its data centre in Singapore, Mesa, Ariz., Irvine, Calif., and Ashburn, Va.  The Piscataway, N.J. data centre, which officially opened this month, became the third AT&T data centre serving customers in the metropolitan New York City market, joining centres in Manhattan and Secaucus, N.J.  AT&T also announced it will offer hosting services at its new Toronto facility by the end of 2007. 

AT&T data centres use the power of the AT&T global network to offer a rich portfolio of hosting solutions with unparalleled network performance and features. Among them are greater agility when making real-time changes to IT environments, more control to extend applications to the customer’s premise or to other data centres, and security capabilities such as denial of service prevention, hosted firewall, intrusion detection and anti-virus options all based in the network.

“We continue to invest in growing our business to support customers and to meet the high demands of businesses large and small for managed hosting and application services,” said Tom Regent AT&T’s head of EMEA. “The expansions of AT&T’s data centres in Europe and around the world  are needed to support all the businesses that turn to AT&T for integrated hosting and network solutions allowing them to focus on running their business.”

The first of the 2007 centre expansions kicked off in January with additions to the Washington, D.C. facility in Ashburn. Since then, AT&T has added more space to its centres around the world and plans other expansions for 2008.

AT&T launched its data centre growth project to meet the unprecedented demand for its managed hosting and application management services.  The additional data centre capacity will help AT&T accommodate growth from existing hosting and improve its ability to provide value-added services for current and new customers. AT&T offers capabilities designed to deliver greater efficiencies for hosting customers through the use of technologies such as server virtualization, application acceleration and patent-pending visual monitoring tools, all of which are integrated with AT&T’s network services. These and other services allow AT&T to deliver hosted solutions that range from monitoring and managing infrastructure components all the way through the full application lifecycle. In addition, AT&T provides remote monitoring and management of IT infrastructure located at customer sites.

AT&T has seen double-digit growth in its hosting business for three consecutive years. That growth also was the catalyst for the acquisition in 2006 of application service provider USi as a way to complement AT&T’s existing managed services capabilities and to pave the way for the company to drive more deeply into the applications management space with new offers for businesses of all sizes.

AT&T is among the top hosting services providers. The new and expanded data centres will further help AT&T position itself to remain a leading force in the global hosting services market, which the research firm IDC predicts will grow from $8.2 billion in 2006 to $16.3 billion in 2011¹.

“The increased volume of Internet-based content, digital content and transactions, along with the continuing trend to data centre consolidation, have given the hosting industry a rebirth of sorts in the last two years,” said Melanie Posey of the research firm IDC.  “This has fueled significant demand for the type of experience with performance optimization and technology solutions that most businesses don’t possess. As a result, more companies are turning to hosting service providers to get the increased flexibility, service functionality and support to help them implement hosted platforms to scale their Web site and application infrastructure, while keeping costs under control.”

AT&T designs its data centres to exceed the most stringent industry standards that include multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, redundant components and fault-tolerant design to provide the highest reliability. Each rack or server cabinet, is provided with redundant circuits from several power distribution units backed up by batteries and diesel generators that ensures an uninterrupted operation. Chillers and water pumps maintain a consistent operating environment, and humidity levels and temperature thresholds are closely monitored by sensors. In addition to security cameras and closed circuit video, other security features include the use of biometric scanners to control access in and around the centre.

AT&T designs its data centers practices and controls with redundancy and reliability in mind and are audited under SAS 70 Type II.

For more information on AT&T’s Enterprise Hosting Services, visit http://www.att.com/hosting.

Note: This AT&T release and other news announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss.

1.  ‘U.S. Web Hosting Services 2007-2011 Forecast,” IDC #206858, May 2007

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