Fujitsu Canada is about to start construction of a 35,000 square foot data centre in Regina to offer co-location, managed and cloud services, part of a plan to substantially increase its outsourcing operations in this country
The company said Tuesday the data centre will be the first in Saskatchewan to be built to Tier III standards and will serve government and private sector customers.
It already has some 10 of its own or leased data centre space in the country totalling a mere 5,000 sq.ft., according to Marinella Ermacora, Fujitsu Canada's senior vice-president of national solutions and leader of its Montreal business unit. If it is built to its maximum size the Regina facility would significantly increase that. And, she said, if the company wins more business it plans to build a data centre of similar size in Eastern Canada.
“As the world's third largest IT services provider, Fujitsu has a proud history in the design, construction and operation of intelligent data centers," Fujitsu Canada president Andre Pouliot said in a news release.
“Our new facility in Saskatchewan underscores our commitment to the market and offers our customers flexible and enhanced services to meet the needs of today's global companies while at the same time creating high value jobs for the local economy. With the launch of this new facility, we are offering clear opportunities for all organizations, regardless of size or industry, to enhance the use of technology to improve efficiencies and significantly reduce costs.”
Ermacora said the Regina facility is being built because Fujitsu won a contract with an organization it can't name. Construction of the 5,000 sq. ft. first phase will start early next year and should be finished in the first half of 2014.
The business of building data centres has taken off as the outsourcing of data centre functions expands.
Most recently,
IBM announced a data centre for delivering SAP applications will be built in Nova Scotia. In September IBM opened a new data centre an hour north of Toronto.
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The Fujitsu data centre decision comes nine months after it bought Saskatchewan-based TMC Technology Management Corp., an IT consulting and service provider. At the time Fujitsu said the deal was made to expand its offerings in the province.
Fujitsu said the new data centre will help it deliver applications for customers world-wide as well be used as a back-up for its other data systems in the country.
As a prairie province, Saskatchewan is known for its chilly winters, which Fujitsu says will be taken advantage of. The news release says the data centre will utilize “the natural asset of the Saskatchewan climate to provide an external air temperature cooling system.”
Part of the Japan-based Fujitsu Ltd. information and communications conglomerate, Fujitsu Canada sells a wide range of products and services including industrial connectors and relays, semiconductors, RFID tags, sales terminals, network equipment for carriers and IT services.
It has about 2,400 employees in 10 offices across the country.