UPDATED: SoftLayer expands into Asia-Pacific, Melbourne on the map

Cloud, dedicated, managed and private hosting company, SoftLayer, is planning new datacentres for Asia-Pacific and Europe with Melbourne as a possible location in Australia.

The decision to expand was driven by the company’s need to bring its services and datacentre offerings closer to the end user and a broader range of customers.

After conducting multiple market analysis and studies of its customer base, the company decided to look into expanding datacentres in Singapore, Australia and Amsterdam late last year.

The company will also add three network Points of Presence (PoPs) in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. Beginning September 23, customers can pre-order services in the new datacentre, to be deployed when the data center and PoPs officially “go live” on October 3.

SoftLayer chief executive officer, Lance Crosby, said, “We are soon going to Melbourne to look at datacentre space. So the roadmap for 2012 is to open up datacentres in Australia and Brazil.”

It is targeted to be deployed within the next 24 to 36 months.

SoftLayer is looking at a minimum of $75 million spent, depending on the mix of equipment by the time it is fully populated. The initial deployment will be worth $6 million to build the core network and infrastructure in the datacentre facility and about $20 million when fully loaded for the first PoP – including the core network and 4000 servers.

According to Crosby, larger global competitors see it as the emerging market.

SoftLayer conducted a customer engagement study late last year and its findings showed that although the US market is still larger than the Asia-Pacific market, the raw dollars spent in the Asia-Pacific market is growing more rapidly and will surpass the US market in the next 12 to 24 months.

SoftLayer chief strategy officer, George Karidis, said, “It will lead to improved performance between Australia and Singapore as a result of those networks and then both Europe and Asia will tie back to the US, as well. So we are creating a global network that ties datacentre services together.”

The expansion will result in more staff being hired in the Asia-Pacific region.

The company also revealed its interest in finding larger channel partners within the region that have a way into the local market. SoftLayer is in talks with a few managed services companies, system integrators and telecommunications service organisations.

Karidis said that it is the cornerstone of how the company will enter the market in Australia as it generally does not have a direct sales force.

The company is looking forward to the rollout of the National Broadband Network as it is expected to benefit the worldwide network.SNG01 and the Hong Kong and Tokyo PoPs feature connectivity from multiple Tier-1 network carriers, including NTT, Tata, and Equinix, with direct network connections to SoftLayer facilities in San Jose and Los Angeles.

“No matter where we put the datacentre in Australia, we will continue to build additional network PoPs in the other larger cities outside the datacentre city. Having broadband into the SMBs and homes will only help to improve the experience for everybody,” Crosby said.

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