Atman sets up the first carrier neutral data center campus in Central and Eastern Europe

06.02.2017
Company news, Product news

The leader in the Polish data center market will be offering services on a carrier neutral model at the Atman Data Center Warsaw-1 on Grochowska St. This is a step towards the creation of the CEE region’s first carrier neutral campus, serving as a market for outside ICT service providers. Similar strategies are being successfully implemented at data centers by firms such as Telehouse and IBM.

“Carrier neutral telecommunications is nothing new to us, because since the Atman Data Center Warsaw-2 (formerly Thinx Poland) opened in 2010, we have been offering to customers of the facility on Konstruktorska St. unrestricted access to a long list of telecommunications operators with whom we cooperate. Now, however, we are going a step further and offering such a possibility at the Atman Data Center Warsaw-1 as well, creating an internal market at both of our Warsaw centers. We want to provide customers with a secure ecosystem composed of ICT jigsaw pieces which can be put together in any way desired, providing to both operators and customers the opportunity to work together on a win-win basis,” explains Atman’s CEO Sylwester Biernacki.

 

A gallery of providers

The Warsaw-based corporation has introduced carrier neutral telecommunications, proving the possibility of connecting to multiple operators on terms and prices that are common to all, at the Atman Data Center Warsaw-1 (WAW-1) in the Praga district of Warsaw. This is a group of buildings designed from scratch as colocation facilities complying with the international Tier III guidelines for data center standards. In combination with the Atman Data Center Warsaw-2 in the Mokotów district and multiple-line connectivity between the left-bank and right-bank areas of Warsaw, a campus of carrier neutral data centers has been set up – the only example of this type of data center infrastructure in Poland. However, Atman has even more ambitious plans.

“We intend to create, on the data center campus, the CEE region’s largest neutral “market” of ICT service providers. Firms typically use the services of many different suppliers, specializing in the areas of telecommunications, security, preparation of emergency plans, and cloud computing. The migration of data to an outside data center does not have to spell the end of these forms of cooperation. We want customers to be able to decide for themselves who they work with and who is to look after each element of their business infrastructure, not only in the telecommunications field,”/em> adds Sylwester Biernacki of Atman.

Customers locating or leasing IT resources at the Atman Data Center Warsaw-1 will in the future be able to select service suppliers for telecommunications connectivity as well as for the preparation of crisis management plans, backup services, cybersecurity, cloud computing on private, public and hybrid models, and VoIP services.

 

A market for the market

Neutrality and personalization in the “building” of infrastructure by data center customers is a trend that is increasingly visible both in Europe and worldwide. It is well illustrated by the examples of such giants of the data center market as Telehouse and IBM, which have good reason to be steering a course in this direction. Apart from the advantages to customers, who are given a free choice of solutions from different providers and can independently build their own infrastructure with the possibility of changing service providers at any moment, benefits are also felt by operators. A primary advantage is the ease of reaching colocation customers on such a campus and the possibility of providing services to them.

“In my career to date I have suggested the implementation of a similar model for cooperation with telecommunications operators on many occasions, but only at Atman has it become a reality. It is with real pleasure that I can now offer to our customers and our telecommunications partners the possibility of setting up connections at the Atman Data Center Warsaw-1 on principles that are common to all, and expanding their portfolios of customers to include firms using our data center services. We are building a value that is so far unparalleled on the Polish market, for both business customers and operators,” says Jarosław Gniado, head of Atman’s Key Clients and Operators Department.

According to CIO magazine, firms are increasingly coming to expect their service providers to cooperate with their erstwhile competitors. This is chiefly a result of the shortage of IT specialists and lack of the internal competences required in the integration of different telecom services.

ATM S.A. is the WSE listed Polish data center market leader as well as an expert in security of data transmission and processing. Under the Atman brand the company provides colocation, hosting and cloud computing services in its data centers with 13,600 sq m (146,400 sq ft) of the total space. Using own international links and fiber-optic networks in the largest Polish cities, Atman offers broadband IP services including Internet access and data transmission. Major recipients of the services are telecommunications operators, traditional media, Internet portals, financial institutions, commercial and industrial companies. More information at atman.pl.