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Why are there so many data centers in Amsterdam

In the capital of the Netherlands and within a radius of 50 km, 70% of all data centers in the country and a third of all data centers in Europe are located. Most of them have opened literally in the last five years. This is really a lot, considering that Amsterdam is a relatively small city. Even Ryazan is bigger! It got to the point that in July 2019, the authorities of the Dutch capital, having concluded that so many data centers as in Amsterdam, are not found in any other large city in the world, decided to limit the construction of new data centers at least until the end of 2019. What so attracts data center operators and other IT companies (including us) to Amster? Of course, we have not yet built our own data center there, but we have opened a new hermetic zone. About her - in the second part of the article, and in the first - about the coveted Amsterdam.



According to Holland Fintech,The Netherlands is also one of Europe's largest fintech hubs, with over 430 companies operating in its market. The reason for the moratorium on the construction of new data centers is as follows: they began to take up too much space (while significantly changing the face of the city, which attracts tourists in many respects with its unique historical architecture) and create an untenable load on the energy system and real estate market (influx of technology companies, coupled with the constantly growing tourist flow has already led to the fact that housing in Amsterdam is becoming inaccessible to most residents of the city). By the way, the city tried to reduce the flow of tourists by restricting the work of Airbnb and introducing a ban on visiting the "Red Light District". The moratorium was introduced to take a break and formulate a policy for the placement of data centers,to better control the situation in this area.


Dutch Fintech Infographic 4.0 by Holland Fintech

What Amsterdam attracts data center operators


Cheap electricity


According to the Dutch Data Center Association (DDCA), the data centers in the country are fully electrified and use 80% clean energy from renewable sources, which puts them first among companies in terms of sustainable development. At one time, the Dutch capital actively lured technology companies with attractive taxes and relatively cheap electricity. Now I thought.

Low taxes


Actually, the reason for the establishment of low taxes was announced above - attempts to attract fintech companies from around the world. The situation has changed, but the tax legislation cannot be changed quickly, so this item remains valid.

Loyal legislation


Local laws on data sovereignty are too good for a Russian person to be true. Nevertheless, thanks to them, no one will be able to seize the server from you without a court order as a “proof” for various reasons at any time. Dutch law also permits what is prohibited in other countries of the world: adult content (adult). As a result, the services of the Dutch data centers are used not only by webmasters, but also those hosting providers who earn on the sale of bulletproof hosting - services where you have the opportunity to post information of any nature and be calm about what the hosting company can without warning delete it at the first complaint (abuse). As "information of any nature" can be not only adult, but also warez, pharma, doorways, spam.

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In Holland in general and in Amsterdam in particular, it is simply the ideal location of the data center for enterprises located in different parts of Europe, since 80% of European locations can be reached in literally 50 milliseconds. Over the past few years, technology companies have rushed to build such facilities, because businesses and individuals are increasingly storing data on the Internet and want to get quick access to them. The push for such centers also coincided with the demand caused by the huge number of online transactions. And also Amsterdam is a suitable entry point for cloud providers in the European market with direct access to hundreds of operators (yes).



So the time has come to talk about our new hermetic zone, the data center Interxion AMS9, which is located in the Science Park (Science Park ) - Amsterdam's leading interconnection center located in the province of North Holland (where the town of Zandam even has a museum of Peter I).

Data Center in Amsterdam: Data Center Interxion AMS9


The campus is 5,225 m2 of client space on 11 floors with many high-quality connectivity options. Here more than 120 companies “live”, ranging from startups to multinational corporations. It is an ever-expanding ecosystem that delivers commercial IT capabilities with very low latency and secure connections. 

Science Park Data Center is owned by Interxion , a European data center provider. It is located in the heart of Amsterdam. As the place where the Amsterdam Internet Exchange was first established, there is a rich and diverse community of communication service providers.



The main offer of the company is operator-independent communication, which includes the provision of space, power and a safe environment for hosting the computing, network, storage and IT infrastructure of customers. Interxion also complements its core colocation offer with a range of additional services, including system monitoring, systems management, technical support services, backup and data storage.

At its data center, Interxion allows approximately 1,500 customers to deploy their equipment and connect to a wide range of telecom operators and Internet providers, as well as other customers. Data centers act as hubs of content and connections that facilitate the processing, storage, sharing and distribution of this content, applications, data and multimedia between carriers and customers.

Interxion's customer base is located in fast-growing market segments, including financial services, digital media, cloud and managed services providers, and telecom operators. It is a key communications center for customers serving the Netherlands and Western Europe.

Infrastructure


The equipped collocation site covers an area of ​​1800 m2 and is located in an ultra-modern reinforced concrete building. Floor load 1,196 kg / m2. Connecting to a community of customers, suppliers, and partners within Interxion data centers is done through cross-connects with minimal latency. Information and communication equipment (ICT) for customers can be placed in secure rooms, racks and stacks or in private rooms. The room also has dedicated offices and portals for customers, a common conference room.



There are special flood protection areas: the so-called 100-year floodplain (Outside 100 Year Floodplain) and 500-year-old floodplain (Outside 500 Year Floodplain). Location plains orderly from calculations based on a statistical frequency analysis repetition interval which is used to estimate the probability of occurrence of heavy flooding with precipitation - "100-year flood" ( 100-year flood ) and the "500-year flood" (500-year flood). This means that the probability of flooding in the first case is 1 out of 100 (i.e. 1% in any year), in the second - 1 out of 500 (i.e. 0.2% in any year).

Energy saving


The total capacity of the data center is 2600 kW. The maximum rack power is 10.0 kW. Type of power supply at the input - one feed channel (Single Feed). Electricity distribution is carried out according to the type of parallel reservation (Parallel Redundant); simultaneously serviced mechanical and electrical systems.

Redundant power supplies are arranged according to the schemes:

  • UPS redundancy - N + 1; The type of UPS is static.
  • Power Distributor (PDU) - N + 1.
  • Generator redundancy - N + 1.
  • The operating time of the diesel generator at full load is 24 hours.

Energy efficiency is ensured by the complex configuration of the cold corridor containment and the optimization functions of airflow control. Interxion AMS9 has agreements with different suppliers of several types of fuel.

Cooling


The type of primary cooling is Air-cooled Chillers. The limitations of cooling air conditioners in a downstream computer room ( CRAC / CRAH redundancy ; read about it here ) are implemented using special solutions for heat dissipation in cooling systems of high-density data centers; redundancy scheme N + 1. Redundancy of the cooling tower and chillers is also equipped according to the N + 1 scheme.



Safety


The security level of the Interxion AMS9 data center is Tier 3. Security personnel are on site 24/7. Controlled perimeter, round-the-clock remote monitoring via cameras, biometric authentication, two-factor authentication and magnetic card access.



Certificates:


Additional services


Interxion offers Hands & Eyes services for routine or emergency support tasks, which include:

  • Unpacking and assembling equipment on site;
  • Site preparation (installation, connection to the power grid, etc. "turnkey");
  • Installation of servers, routers, switches and patch panels (patch panel, cross panel);
  • Network connection and wiring;
  • Configuring the switch and routes;
  • Technical support and troubleshooting;
  • Infrastructure audit and documentation;
  • Replace or upgrade equipment.

NOC (Network Operations Center, NOC) - monitoring the behavior of
the client's business IT infrastructure. The service is especially useful for small and medium-sized enterprises that do not have an IT department, or for very large companies, the administration of which can be a difficult task.



DCIM for customers- Data Center Infrastructure Management, a solution that provides control of each device in the racks, which helps automate monitoring processes that were previously performed manually. Achieved through the introduction of specialized software, equipment and sensors, DCIM provides a common platform for real-time monitoring and control for all interdependent systems in the IT and facility infrastructure. Identify and eliminate sources of risk and increase the availability of critical IT systems. It can also be used to identify the interdependencies between equipment and IT infrastructure, to warn of gaps in the redundancy (redundancy) of the system, as well as provide dynamic, holistic guidelines for energy consumption and efficiency.



Conclusion


When working with an Amsterdam data center, for example with Interxion AMS9, you will have one of the fastest connections in Europe, since the data center will be connected to the largest Internet traffic exchange points with convenient access to any data from anywhere in the world at any time with a wide choice of channels and the lowest latency - 99.99999% globally.

A convenient geographical position makes it possible to build good connectivity with both America and Europe at the same time, including Ukraine and Russia, the main consumers of the traffic of the Russian-language segment of the Internet.

Loyal Dutch legislation allows you to post content that is subject to restrictions in other countries, including Russia (for example, adult, despite the fact that the share of adult foreign traffic is estimated at up to 54%). And most importantly - the protection by law of your data will not allow any structure, including law enforcement agencies, to extract information from your servers.

In connection with the expansion of RUVDS expansion in the Netherlands, we hope to see you among our new and already regular customers.

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