Adam Scully, Chief Sales Officer
A quick look at the Brisbane skyline reveals the hallmarks of increasing investment and talent attraction, with new developments dotted across the cityscape. If we look below the surface, into the information superhighways and critical IT infrastructure, we see important progress - with Digital Brisbane calling the city ‘Australia’s newest world city’ due to it becoming a more connected and competitive player in the global digital economy.
According to Brisbane City Council, greater Brisbane’s economy is expected to hit $217 billion by 2031, up from $171 billion today. This economic growth is helping to nurture a hotbed of technology enterprises and start-ups like NEXTDC, Comlinx (now Over the Wire), Superloop, Cloudscene, Megaport, Cloud Plus, Data#3 and Technology One, all of which were founded and continue to thrive from their Brisbane headquarters. Latest data from StartUp Muster, which surveys the largest cross-section of Australian start-ups, shows that Queensland has leap-frogged Victoria with the overall number of technology start-ups, now sitting second only to New South Wales.
The Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are also experiencing sustained economic growth strongly correlated to this technology and infrastructure boom. In the digital age, where all organisations are totally dependent on their technology to thrive, the availability and proximity of data centre services providers like NEXTDC in the state are critical to helping new business hubs develop and continue gathering momentum.
Technology megatrends like cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed ledgers (blockchain) has exponentially increased the amount of data in existence. This in-turn accelerates the need for reliable and secure data centre facilities across Australia.
Forbes recently stated that, individuals and businesses currently generate approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data around the world each day and that the total volume of data in existence is doubling every 18 months. As a result, hyperconverged, high density data centre environments where multiple organisations colocate within secured, powered and connected ecosystems are now the norm. Colocating in these specialist data centre environments is not only more cost efficient, it’s become an essential enabler of organisations building an infrastructure platform that can grow and scale in lockstep with the business.
With businesses requiring more power to run systems and the flexibility to scale up and down when peak periods occur, it is no longer practical or affordable for them to design, build and manage their own IT infrastructure on-premise.
In the new digital economy, having that capacity, on-demand under a utility services model, is critical - without it businesses lose the ability to scale or integrate new technologies and platforms quickly. Being located in close proximity to global cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft and Google is now critical to the success of organisations, as they continue to build and mature their Hybrid Cloud environments.
As a result of this growing complexity in the cloud infrastructure environment, the availability of NEXTDC’s B2 facility – built to the highest global standards for security, sustainability and operational excellence – is now more critical than ever to Brisbane and Queensland’s continued economic growth.
B2 was the first of NEXTDC’s second generation data centres and was the first colocation data centre in the Southern hemisphere to achieve Tier IV Design, Construct and Gold Certification for Operational Sustainability from the Uptime Institute (UI). This is the highest possible accreditation level from the world’s leading independent data centre advisory and certification organisation, with very few worldwide successfully achieving all three levels of the pinnacle of certification standards.
Strategically located in Fortitude Valley, B2 is a hop-skip-and jump from the heart of Queensland’s economy and is connected to the rest of NEXTDC’s national footprint of premium data centres and the ecosystem of 550+ ICT specialists that it houses – enabling local organisations to expand and compete nationally.
This best-of-breed facility is helping to facilitate digital change and transformation across Queensland by servicing increasing demand for access to cloud platforms and carrier networks and driving innovation opportunities to the local economy, by getting Queensland businesses connected to the cloud faster and more cost effectively.
With cloud forming the main enabler of rapid scalability, business continuity, collaboration efficiencies, flexible working practices and reduced costs, NEXTDC’s B2 facility allows organisations to align their cloud strategy with their own digital transformation and growth strategies. In turn enhancing Brisbane’s reputation as a commercial hub, and helping to accelerate its journey to the $217 billion economic value target. Through B2, NEXTDC will continue to drive innovation across Queensland and Australia by providing organisations of all sizes with the digital infrastructure they need to succeed in today’s global innovation economy.
To understand how colocation can help you optimise spend, performance and accelerate business growth, reach out to our friendly team of specialists .
