On Monday morning, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, was in Bettembourg to inaugurate the new DC1.3 datacenter of LuxConnect, its second in Bettembourg after the September 2014 opening of its first at the Krakelshaff industrial zone, comprising 21,000 m2 over three floors.
The new DC1.3 datacenter is LuxConnect's 4th datacenter has €44 million invested in it, covering 5,500 m2. Tom Kettels of LuxConnect explained that they are applying for Tier III certification and expect to be the first data centre world-wide to be able to offer three different level of certification.
Laurent Zeimet, Mayor of Bettembourg, was the first of a series of speakers to address the invited audience; he was followed by Roger Lampach, CEO of LuxConnect who talked about technical achievement and referred to the first flight of the Wright Brothers and the building of the pyramids, as well as taking man to the moon. After air and water, the most important thing is now data. The omnipresence of services is crucial and colocation is now taken for granted, with the media world undergoing a paradigm shift, one that is also going to affect data centers where Luxembourg has a high percentage of Tier IV certified data centers which has garnered a reputation of being expensive and inflexible. Possibly the solution is to focus on Tier III facilities? But Luxembourg needs a solid national strategy to be competitive in the future when major changes are expected in the Internet of Things, where virtualisation of data centers is at stake.
Philip Collerton, MD EMEA at Uptime Institute, the institute that awards certification to data centers, talked about relevance in today's digital infrastructure. He explained that whether public, private or in the cloud, data resides somewhere, and that data centers are the least talked about component of cloud computing. On tier certification, he stated that there are 800+ certifications over the four tier classes in 70 countries worldwide. He confirmed that Luxembourg has the highest concentration of Tier IV certified data centers world-wide. He then presented the Tier IV certificates to LuxConnect.
John Graham-Cumming, CTO at Cloud Flare, talked about how Internet attacks are so easy and cheap and frequent. His company protects around 4 million websites world-wide, with many data centres supporting their work. While not currently present in Luxembourg, he confirmed that they will be present in Luxembourg shortly, treating 4 million requests daily. He explained how some companies charge for attacking websites, selling access to others' computers and using ransomware to make money. This asymmetric warfare is where hackers have discovered to make money online instead of just being destructive.
Reid Fischler, Director at Hurricane Electric, talked about "Why Luxembourg?" for his company which recently opened offices in Bettembourg. He explained the Internet as a network of networks. Hurricane Electric connects networks and is the most interconnected backbone worldwide. He showed how the decentralisation of the Internet does not any more rely on going through the US. He said that, in Luxembourg, LU-CIX processes around 40 gigabits/second. He stressed how Luxembourg is important as an interconnection point for the rest of the world.
Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, talked about Digital Luxembourg and stressed how important the "next best thing" is, with looking forward to tomorrow, with trust and security the cornerstone of datacenters. He thanked LIST and the University of Luxembourg for researching and developing new security systems. He explained datacenters being an enabler for the Luxembourg digital economy. Predicting the future is a risky business and the country is now looking at space for further exploration and discovery.
The inauguration ceremony consisted of Prime Minister Bettel symbolically switching on the power for the new building.
Photos by Geoff Thompson (below): Philip of Uptime Institute awarding Tier IV certificates to LuxConnect
