KUALA LUMPUR, 1 SEPTEMBER 2009 – Fulfilling the ‘green agenda’ is the main driver of the launch of two new data centres—one in Malaysia’s Cyberjaya, and another in Shah Alam, according to IT services firm Basis Bay.
Presiding at the dual launch of the company’s flagship ‘green’ data centre in Cyberjaya (BDC Cyberjaya), and another data centre in Shah Alam (BDC Glenmarie), Basis Bay Group chief executive officer Dato’ Praba Thiagarajah said: “The Basis Bay Green Data Centre was engineered with the intention of fulfilling the green agenda addressing the triple bottom line of ‘people, planet and profit’. Basis Bay has generally taken an environmentally conscious approach in the construction and operation of our data centres.”
During the launch, which was officiated by the minister of science, technology and innovation (MOSTI), Datuk Dr Maximus Johnity Ongkili, Thiagarajah said: “The company’s tagline of ‘Reengineering IT for a Greener World’ highlights that companies need to outsource their critical business functions in an environmentally sustainable manner.”
Since 1996, Basis Bay has provided IT strategic and infrastructure services to more than 300 customers in various industries across different continents. The company has a presence in more than 11 locations across the Asia Pacific and Europe.
Greening means maximising efficiency
“Our flagship data centre in Cyberjaya has inculcated as many green features as we think practical,” said Thiagarajah. “It is built with international standards and compliance in mind.”
“The greening of a data centre means that the mechanical, electrical and computer systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency with minimum environmental impact,” he added.
“The dual data centre complex (BDC Cyberjaya and BDC Glenmarie), totalling more than 100,000 sq ft [9,300 sq m], provides co-location, hosting, disaster recovery and business continuity management, remote infrastructure management, cloud computing and software-as-a-service,” said Thiagarajah. “In addition, the data centre is Tier IV enabled, with fully redundant components and environmentally-conscious features, as well as solar energy facilities.”
“More and more businesses are looking for outsourcing partners which not only provide IT outsourcing infrastructure services but one which can help them reduce their carbon footprint, without the need for high capital outlay and time lag necessary to build a data centre of that standard from scratch,” he added.
International companies can take advantage of the quality and high value niche services Malaysia has to offer on top of the availability of skilled workers, competitive cost and an ideal business environment, according to the MOSTI minister. “In the long run, we have much to gain from being the preferred high-value outsourcing regional hub as we will move the economy up the value chain and take a step closer towards being a fully developed nation,” said Dr Maximus.
“This is the first step of many to come. The green data centre is to show Malaysians that local ICT players, like Basis Bay, can do it,” said Basis Bay’s Thiagarajah. “We have developed our own capabilities to be at par if not better than those of international ICT players.”
