New Zealand wholesaler of telco infrastructure Chorus has tapped digital infrastructure and continuity solutions provider Vertiv to expand its co-location offering in Auckland and unlock customers’ computing potential in regional locations using its existing distributed network of telco buildings.
Chorus has undergone a colocation data centre evolution to expand its digital reach, repurposing four existing metro-based telephone exchange facilities into EdgeCentre modular data centre sites.
Within these sites, Vertiv SmartAisle data centre infrastructure has been operating to support the Chorus fibre network.
Recently, the wholesaler sought to upgrade its Auckland data centre capability and added capacity to its Mount Eden EdgeCentre site.
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“New Zealand RSPs are increasingly determined to offer wraparounds of cloud managed services, and we want to keep being the wholesaler for their network and hosting service requirements in that relationship,” said Chorus colocation product manager Mohammad Hadi.
“Mount Eden was our pilot build in 2015, and every rack in that facility has since sold out. To give our customers room to play in today’s digital ecosystem, we needed to expand our capacity in Auckland where customers needed it. This demand led to the significant expansion of the Mount Eden site.”
Chorus tapped Vertiv to create a modular and scalable data centre solution that would complement the facility’s existing structure. Vertiv developed the design and implemented a 23-rack hot aisle containment system with a scalable power range of 50kW to 250 kW.
The solution uses refrigerant-based air-cooling modules, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, and leverages an environmental monitoring unit, which tracks energy consumption, alerts teams to potential failures, and rapidly diagnoses problems.
“Our 23 racks of new capacity live in a single row on a back wall – an efficient use of space,” continued Hadi. “That’s relevant because sites such as Mount Eden used to be occupied by large, legacy copper telco equipment. They’re now being replaced with smaller, more sustainable fibre alternatives, and Vertiv is helping us free up new space to put it to other uses.”
“We’re now looking at more data centre growth in the region. With close to 600 telephone exchange buildings already dispersed throughout the country, we have a head start in giving regional areas access to the computing power and functionality they currently lack, right at the network’s edge.”
“This move will also benefit our customers who are making decisions around resilience. In the unfortunate event of a natural disaster, geographical diversity – where workloads spread across multiple locations – is critical for business resilience,” said Hadi.
Chorus operates and owns the largest copper and fibre networks in New Zealand. Since its inception in 2011, the organisation has provided New Zealand’s 90-plus retail service providers (RSP) with open layer 1 and layer 2 services on its copper and fibre networks.
“With a combined fibre network and distributed data centres offering, Chorus is making a splash on the digitisation of New Zealand,” concluded Vertiv head of New Zealand Mark Langford.