PRESS RELEASE

Minister Announces Cork Data Centre To Expand Creating Ten New Jobs

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources visits Cork Internet eXchange

Cork, Ireland. Friday April 30^th 2010: Cork Internet Exchange, the only commercial Irish green data centre outside Dublin, has expanded capacity by 100 per cent to fulfil the increasing demand for IT outsourcing, cloud computing and co-location by Irish and overseas companies. The expansion will lead to the creation of ten high skilled post graduate jobs in software and networking at Cork Internet Exchange.

To mark the expansion, Communications Minister Eamon Ryan visited the data centre at Holyhill, Cork and welcomed this latest smart economy announcement.

Minister Ryan commented: “The Cork Internet Exchange is in a strong position to deliver cost effective, reliable and secure IT services for businesses across all sectors in the Munster region.  With an energy-efficient facility like this, creating new jobs, the local economy in Cork is undoubtedly green. I wish the Exchange the very best in this expansion.”

The Minister also welcomed a Cork Internet Exchange initiative to provide high speed broadband to businesses and consumers in the Munster region at a greatly reduced cost. The data centre has entered into contracts to utilise BT and ESB owned fiber optic cables connecting Cork with Dublin, terminating at two Dublin based data centres Interxion and DEG. As part of the initiative, the Internet Neutral Exchange Association (INEX), Ireland’s Internet Exchange point, will be connected to this new resilient Giga bit Ethernet fiber ring and this will dramatically reduce the cost of connectivity between Cork and Dublin.

Jerry Sweeney, Managing Director, Cork Internet Exchange, commented: “We are very proud to welcome Minister Eamon Ryan to the only Irish green data centre outside Dublin. Since commencing operations in March 2008 the data centre has experienced strong growth leading us to double capacity. Outsourcing plays a key role in competitiveness and co-location in a high availability facility such as Cork Internet Exchange is a vital part of the outsourcing process.”

He continued: “Cork Internet Exchange was one of the first data centres in Ireland to use a green cooling system that is highly energy efficient, utilising cold-aisle containment, and free-cooling technology. The water-based cooling system makes us one of the most energy efficient data centres in Ireland.”

Cork Internet Exchange is also the switching centre for Cork Neutral Internet Exchange (CNIX), a not for profit organisation that provides faster, more reliable Internet access. CNIX is a neutral peering service allowing CNIX members to route IP traffic efficiently preventing the need for Internet traffic that originates and terminates in Munster having to first go to Dublin. See www.cnix.ie for details.

Furthermore, a new VOIP DNS service initiative between Cork Neutral Internet Exchange and IEDR, the registry for .ie Internet Domain Names, will be launched out of Cork Internet Exchange.  The service will run initially on a pilot basis with a view to future expansion. It will help to promote the use of VoIP and ENUM in Ireland.  Voice over IP creates the opportunity for free telephone calls. ComReg under the direction of Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, awarded a contract to IEDR, to setup an ENUM DNS service to enable normal telephone traffic travel over the Internet. This service creates the possibility to reduce or eliminate all charges for VOIP traffic. To get the service started the Government will be connecting many departments to the system. Initially Munster based Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP’s) will be connected to the system and will be enabled to pass on the benefits of free calls to their customers.

ENDS

Media Contact

Cathy Riordan
PR Wise
Mob – +353 87 418 2422

About Cork Internet Exchange

Cork Internet Exchange is the only commercial Irish green data centre outside Dublin and commenced operations in March 2008. Cork Internet Exchange was one of the first data centres in Ireland to use a green cooling system that is highly energy efficient, utilising cold-aisle containment, and free-cooling technology

Cold aisle containment involves the enclosing of the isle that contains the front of each rack. Cold air is pushed into this area for the servers/hardware to suck in this cold air and expel it into the hot isle at the rear of the racks.

About the GigE fibre ring between Cork and Dublin

A syndicate of private companies in the data centre and wireless internet service provider space have come together to build a high speed resilient fibre optic cable ring from Dublin to Cork. This connection will reduce the costs of broadband to Munster customers. The syndicate partners are:-

• Airwave Internet (www.airwave.ie)
• Cork Community Broadband (www.ccbisp.net)
• Cork Internet Exchange (www.cix.ie)
• Complete Telecom (www.complete.ie)
• Digital Forge (www.digitalforge.ie)
• East Cork Broadband (www.eastcork.net)
• Nova Networks (www.novanetworks.ie)
• Ripplecom (www.ripplecom.net)

About CNIX

CNIX is the only Neutral Internet Exchange Point in Ireland outside Dublin. CNIX aims to support the local economy and grow local infrastructure by enabling higher capacity at a reduced cost to Munster operators.

The CNIX switching centre is located in Cork Internet Exchange (CIX), a secure neutral data centre based in Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Cork. CNIX will provide a Layer2 & Layer3 Internet Exchange. Rapid Broadband has provided 2 Cisco 3550 Switches for the Layer2 IX, with Cork Community Broadband providing 2 Quagga BGP Routers for the Layer3 IX.

An Internet exchange point (IX or IXP) is a physical infrastructure that allows different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to exchange Internet traffic between their networks autonomous systems by means of mutual peering agreements, which allow traffic to be exchanged without cost. IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP’s traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the Average Per-Bit Delivery Cost of their service. Furthermore, the increased number of paths learned through the IXP improves routing efficiency and fault-tolerance.