Chorus has opened its fourth key data centre, called EdgeCentre in Otumoetai, Tauranga.

This signals a significant investment in the Bay of Plenty region, allowing businesses a cost effective and flexible solution to easily scale their existing networks.

The data centre is the largest Chorus has built to date, with 20 equipment racks.

Chorus is predicting significant demand in the area.

Re-purposed from former phone exchanges, Chorus EdgeCentre is a distributed data centre model, and the Otumoetai site joins three other sites across New Zealand in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The new Otumoetai site allows local businesses to connect to the heart of the largest ultra-fast fibre network in New Zealand, making it a perfect fit for businesses using private, hybrid or cloud solutions.

"Significant growth in the cloud and associated applications, plus rapidly increasing demands for high powered computing is driving the need for a safe and reliable environment for data processing equipment," says Will Dodson, Product Manager – Colocation from Chorus.

"Demand in the Bay of Plenty for this type of service is strong, so opening an EdgeCentre in Otumoetai is a significant step in allowing local businesses to tap in to the heart of the fibre network."

EdgeCentre enables retail service providers and enterprises to benefit from:

-Ultra-low latency and reduced data transport requirements resulting in lower costs.

-Efficiencies in terms of temperature, power, cooling and other environmental controls Redundant cooling and power systems mean that even in the event of a serious fault EdgeCentre continues to provide service.

-Flexibility and scale allowing users to easily scale from one rack unit to 100 full racks A one stop shop for connectivity needs in the region.

Mike Stevenson from Trustpower, says being able to tap directly into the fast fibre network through Otumoetai has further improved services for customers.

"Trustpower already uses Chorus' three other EdgeCentres, so to connect in to Otumoetai allows Customers in the Bay of Plenty region to have the lowest latency, highest bandwitch connectivity to CDN resources that can now be located directly adjacent to where their Internet connections terminate.

"This is a model that Trustpower has been deploying throughout New Zealand with the help of the Chorus EdgeCentre product."

"There's a range of detailed benefits these data centres offer, but what they ultimately provide is stronger connectivity and greater possibilities for Tauranga businesses," says Will.

"It provides more options for secure network configurations and data storage capabilities and the ability to explore the full potential of hybrid cloud based innovation.

"Plus be more productive and profitable in the process."

Will says Trustpower is a foundation client and they are getting more and more interest each week from local businesses in Tauranga and from the wider Bay of Plenty region.

He encourages local businesses that require significant IT infrastructure, such as the District Health Board, City Council, and the many companies involved in logistics such as the Port of Tauranga, to find out more about how they can utilise EdgeCentre's to lower costs and increase productivity.

All of the existing EdgeCentre sites have potential for expansion plus Chorus has an extensive property portfolio of more than 600 exchange buildings across New Zealand, offering the potential to deliver more datacentre sites in the future.