Data Highway to the Nordics

Security and services drive data north

In recent years, the cold climate of the Nordics has been a hothouse for data center growth and innovation.

Businesses across Europe have turned to Nordics and the Baltics for their data storage and processing needs as the region has proved to have the ideal conditions for IT infrastructure in terms of affordable space, low temperatures, and an abundance of reliable, renewable energy.

But there is now a growing need for data centers to further diversify their offerings in order to meet a broadening range of enterprise demands, such as accessing or building a private cloud. No longer are space and power enough to draw customers north. The market now requires high speed connectivity services like the Sea Lion submarine cable between Finland and Germany that are automatically protected by the most powerful and robust encryption technology. What’s more, this needs to be available across all types of connectivity and performance assured end-to-end.

It’s all about helping customers to meet diverse demands and offer them packaged solutions tailored to differing requirements – highly efficient security whether connecting to the cloud, to data centers or to any IT resource.

Testing the data highway

Together with three key partners, we’ve been developing new approaches to address these needs. Right now, we’re conducting a series of industry-first proof of concept (PoC) trials that will demonstrate highly efficient security and performance across every kind of network.

For these tests we’re collaborating with ADVA Optical Networks, a German based network equipment provider; Ficolo, Finland’s leading cloud delivery and colocation data center; and Creanord, Finland’s premier network assurance enabler. Our trials involve three types of managed connectivity services, with the findings due to be revealed at Data Center Forum in Stockholm on November 29, 2017.

We’re excited about revealing the results of these pioneering trials. One thing is already certain though: this type of security offered as a complete package will dominate the market in the near future. It’s going to be the key enabler of growth as more of Northern Europe’s cold-weather facilities attract a wider range of off-shore customers through improved performance, security and cost. The next couple of years will see secure connectivity at every layer being the number 1 advantage in the Nordic data race.