AIMS Cyberjaya Sdn Bhd (AIMS) has been awarded a tender by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) to interconnect data centres in Cyberjaya.
The Inter-Data Centre (DC) Network initiative is aimed at mitigating the high cost of bandwidth faced by Malaysia-based data centres. AIMS will be responsible for the deployment, configuration, monitoring and support of the network services and operations in an ultra-broadband backbone network interconnecting participating data centres within Cyberjaya.
The contact value was not disclosed by AIMS or MdeC at the time of writing.
The initial phase of the ‘Inter-DC Network’ initiative will leverage existing dark (unused) optical fibre infrastructure available in Cyberjaya to interconnect with participating data centres based there.
The plan is to aggregating all the traffic of these data centers, to enable drastically cheaper bulk bandwidth purchases, as typically – 10 Gbps is 4x cheaper as compared to 1 Gbps on a per megabit basis.
Also, with dark fibre (which is based on a long term CAPEX investment lease model), cost does not escalate with an increase in bandwidth usage. This enables the maximum utilisation of the fibre capacity specifically for large bandwidth applications, AIMS said in a statement.
The InterDC Network initiative was conceived from the input by local data centre players in consultation organized by the Malaysian Data Centre Alliance (MDCA) and facilitated by MDeC – to bring down the cost of data centre operations.
Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad, Director, Digital Enablement Division, MdeC shares that Malaysia international connectivity is ranked at a poor 28 spot (out of the top 30 nations -Cushman & Wakefield, 2013), even when the country’s overall Global Data Centre Risk ranking is at 16.
“New submarine cables are expected to be in service by Q2 FY16 to address the international component of this bandwidth cost. But at the same time the domestic aspect needs to be equally addressed, and we are looking at ways to bring this down to create a more competitive data centre ecosystem to encourage digital content and services players to make Malaysia a base in serving the region.”
“High-bandwidth data centres are a pre-requisite for Cloud, the Internet of Things and Big Data applications; and we believe this InterDC Network initiative will enable participating data centres to offer competitive prices in offering such services,” says Wan, adding that there are more than 20 data centres based in Cyberjaya.
The InterDC Network initiative has been modelled after the highly successful Malaysian Internet Exchange (MyIX) – which has significantly reduced the cost of domestic bandwidth connectivity, using the concept of aggregation nodes and co-location of network points of presence (POPs) for Internet service providers.
MdeC said it believes there is a synergy can be created between MyIX and the InterDC Network initiative by both of their eventual interconnection. “Initial steps towards this has already been started and accepted by both MyIX and the Malaysian Data Centre Alliance (MDCA) members.”
Wan adds, “MDeC believes that AIMS track record of successfully managing one of three key infrastructure nodes of MyIX, and their understanding of running a collective (data centre) industry business model is an added advantage to complete this project sooner and to be operational by Q3 FY15.”
AIMS will also act as a neutral party in ensuring the collective growth of the industry.
AIMS Group Chief Executive Officer Chiew Kok Hin says, “AIMS is honoured to be part of this exciting project that is set to boost the data centre industry in Malaysia via this set-up of a common bandwidth infrastructure in Cyberjaya. By reduced bandwidth costs, we will be able to attract a higher number of investors looking to host their data in Malaysia and the ASEAN region.”
AIMS said it is also committed to the criteria set by MdeC – including the 99.9 percent availability, high scalability to multiple terabits of capacity, high security, and short deployment time.
Wan adds that MDeC will oversee the initial three years of implementation and growth before handing over the project to industry stakeholders, by the fourth year of this initiative. “MDeC envisages a similar model to be extended beyond Cyberjaya in the future,” he ends.
