Whilst North America is widely acknowledged as home to the most efficient infrastructure when it comes to network, data center availability and connectivity, Great Britain hosts the world’s largest financial center, the City of London.
The magnitude of electronic transactions which take place in the Square Mile is simply huge, yet remarkably the vast majority of the infrastructure is reliant on Equinix’s LD4 datacenter in Slough, 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the financial district.
Very soon however, an entirely new 45,000 square foot (4180.64 m2) Volta datacenter will be open for business in readiness for going live this fall in London’s Clerkenwell district, which is just a few meters from the main financial center itself. The new premises, which was acquired two years ago by Volta as a dedicated building to carry out this project, was completed at the beginning of June and its imminent launch makes it the first new data center in the City of London for over 12 years.
Forex Magnates spoke yesterday in detail about this with Julian King, Commercial Director of Volta, during his visit to New York on the steps taken to bring this to fruition and to elaborate in detail on Volta's business priorities over the next year.
All Set For Launch
Since July 2012, Volta has been re-developing the old Reuters building in Great Sutton Street in order to form what the company considers Central London’s most connected and resilient data center, catering to users of latency-sensitive services in the financial sector and providing access to key Liquidity trading venues.
Julian King
Commercial Director, Volta
In preparation for its going live, Volta already has 8 of the world’s leading carriers, delivering ultra-fast, resilient connectivity. Volta has installed a power supply with an output of 33,000 volts, which is unusual in Britain, where power is usually supplied by 11,000 volt networks). The set-up is such that the Volta Great Sutton Streets data center has a unique power supply in contrast to other data centers in Central London, and is capable of maintaining the entire data center's stability should there be a power outage across London.
Mr King brings a wealth of experience from the data center and business sectors, having previously held the role of Commercial Director at international data center and storage firm Global Switch, where he had responsibility for the group’s commercial and sales strategy. He joined Global Switch in 2002 at a time when the entire industry sector was suffering the effects of the demise of the dot com boom and was instrumental in repositioning the business to attract global corporates and their reseller partners.
Mr King explained yesterday: “Our position in the City has a number of advantages. This is why we believe the facility will be attractive to a wide range of financial services firms including the institutional forex sector. The location in the city will make it particularly attractive to the forex community, particularly the connectivity of the building which is currently connected to eight carriers and all of the major trading venues. The building itself is a brand new facility, which encompasses a 45,000 square foot raised floor technology space with a very resiliant power supply which is better than any out-of-town datacenter power supply in the UK, in this case comprising a 33,000 volt substation which is exclusive to this data center and not shared with anyone else.”
Future-Proofing in Advent of Dodd-Frank Rulings
Mr King also elaborated on the compliance aspects relating to the Dodd-Frank rulings on data storage and understands that the new Volta facility is fully compliant, therefore alluding to London’s trading venues being able to maintain their position internationally. “As we know that there will be further regulation incorporated in the Dodd-Frank Act which is going to affect forex and derivatives, we looked at what we have recently experienced from businesses in the equities side. They need a resilient data facility and backup environment; we believe that this will stand us in good stead for the international forex business in future”.
Full Detailed Overview in Next Quarterly Report
The next Forex Magnates Quarterly Report for Q2 of 2013 will include a full and detailed overview of the new Volta Datacenter in London, including full details of its technical specification, functionality, layout, capability and which executing venues it will serve. Forex Magnates will also report on its structure, and development period, along with an in-depth interview with Julian King.
