Telstra boosts local cloud commitment with four new data centres

Working to bolster its credentials in the increasingly competitive cloud-computing market, Telstra has announced the construction of four new data centres designed to increase its appeal to government bodies, large businesses and others concerned about data sovereignty issues.

Designed to improve performance and data management through provision of local hosting, the new hosting sites will be operational soon from completed premises in Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT, with a Victorian facility due to come online in 2014.

They will complement existing facilities in Sydney and Melbourne.

The new 2000 square-metre Melbourne facility, to be located in the south-east Melbourne suburb of Clayton, will attract an investment of more than $100m alone, with 500 jobs to be created during construction. The facility will host Telstra's enterprise cloud services and serve as a showcase for Telstra's data-centre design, energy efficiency and other initiatives.

Paul Geason, group managing director for Telstra Enterprise and Government, said in a statement that the new facilities were part of the company’s previously announced $800m cloud investment and would capitalise on Telstra’s Next G wireless and Next IP fibre backhaul networks to deliver highly-optimised performance for the company’s customers.

“With many organisations moving into the cloud, the feedback has been clear,” he said. “The option to use local data centres is important either because their applications are sensitive to latency, or they require data to be hosted within their state.”