The MVP-led company said yesterday that it is “set to build” a new data center that is capable of meeting the “massive power and IT requirements of global hyperscalers.” PLDT [TEL 1620.00 0.61%] said that the new data center will be the PH’s first “hyperscaler data center”, will have more “power capacity” than all of TEL’s other 10 data centers combined, wll be “global class” in terms of energy use efficiency, will use “green technology” to support the carbon-neutrality of its customers.
TEL said that this new data center will enter operations as a tier-3 data center (limited downtime), but that it will be tier-4 ready should the company choose to upgrade its reliability.
Tier-4 data centers typically optimize for uptime and reliability to the point where even unplanned events and outages won’t disrupt the flow of client data. TEL said that it is hoping to support the needs of “global technology giants” looking to expand in the SE Asian region.
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TEL’s statement felt like a Super Troopers gag to see how many times it could fit “hyperscale” into a single piece, and to make the joke even funnier, decline to even define what they meant by “hyperscale”.
Do not worry, dear reader; MB is here to help. While there is no conclusive definition, it’s fair to say that a data center that is “hyperscale” is one that is larger than the typical data center, and built-in a way so as to absolutely maximize the performance of the system in terms of speed and uptime. A hyperscale data center, through its size and design, is built to be even more energy-efficient than a typical data center, “emphasizing stripped-down hardware, maximum disaggregation (components can be mixed and matched), modularity, automation, and other principles” (link).
So, while this seems like a buzzword wishlist soup from TEL, the takeaway here is that the company is planning to build a new data center to meet the needs of the current-generation internet, in a bid to make PH-based cloud services more attractive to foreign multinationals.
This is the kind of move that could keep the Philippines from falling off the global cloud map, but not necessarily push it to the forefront.
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