PEER 1 Hosting building world-class datacenter in the UK

Company begins phased build out of flagship datacenter, the largest of 18 in its global network

VANCOUVER, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ - PEER 1 Hosting, the global online IT hosting provider, announced today the company has begun build out on a 50,000 square foot green datacenter in Portsmouth, UK. Rather than building out large datacenter spaces all at once, the Portsmouth datacenter will incorporate a POD design (Performance Optimized Datacenter). The first of four POD stages is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2011 at an initial cost of £10 million. The remaining stages will be dedicated to additional datacenter space and infrastructure which will be built out in three future phases based upon customer demand and market conditions. 

The PEER 1 Hosting datacenter will offer scalable managed hosting, dedicated hosting and co-location services within the Portsmouth facility. This will be the first time all three types of hosting will be offered by the company from a UK-based facility. Peer 1 Hosting's Toronto Datacenter also offers all three hosting services under a single roof.

The facility will have capacity for approximately 1,020 normal cabinet equivalents (NCE) for co-location or 20,000 servers for managed and dedicated hosting, with the flexibility to alter the mix of these core services based on future customer demand.

"Demand for European datacenter space is expected to double by 2015. There is a need for an increase in technology here and with our new flagship datacenter, we're answering that call," said Fabio Banducci, President and CEO of PEER 1. "We're one of the few hosting companies in the UK who own our datacenter. This new build is a testament to our growth in the UK market since our launch in 2009. We believe the new state-of-the-art facility in Portsmouth will play an important role in driving future growth and returns."

The UK facility follows in the footsteps of PEER 1 Hosting's Toronto datacenter which was also built in PODs and opened in spring of 2010. POD A in the Toronto datacenter has been up and running since the launch. Customers will begin using POD B as early as February 2011, and POD C is currently being built and should be ready for customers in late Spring 2011. Click here to watch a virtual tour of the Toronto datacenter.

PEER 1 Hosting has its own global SuperNetwork™ that now incorporates 18 Datacenters and 21 Points of Presence connected across North America and Europe, providing ultra-fast, powerful, network speed and connectivity.

"This new state-of-the-art datacenter enables us to continue delivering world-class service for both existing and new customers now and in the future," said Gary Sherlock, Executive VP and CFO for PEER 1 Hosting. "This is a significant investment for PEER1 but it will boost our presence in the UK and encourage worldwide investment in the market."

The new facility will implement some of the most efficient products and technologies on the market designed to reduce its overall carbon footprint and provide lower energy consumption. Some of the efficiencies planned include the use of redundant high-efficiency VFD centrifugal chillers and heat exchangers to take advantage of "free cooling" year round, providing significant energy savings. Based on the location of Portsmouth, the datacenter will generate 85 percent free air cooling from its natural environment. This enables the company to use more environmentally-friendly refrigerants not commonly found in current air-cooled systems.

About PEER 1 Hosting
PEER 1 Hosting is one of the world's leading IT hosting providers. The company is built on two obsessions: Ping & People. Ping, represents its commitment to best-in-breed technology, founded on a high performance 10Gb SuperNetwork™ connected by 17 state-of-the-art datacenters, 21 points-of-presence and 10 colocation facilities throughout North America and Europe. People, represents its commitment to delivering outstanding customer service to its more than 10,000 customers worldwide, backed by a 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support™. PEER 1 Hosting's portfolio includes Managed Hosting, Dedicated Servers under the ServerBeach brand, Colocation and Cloud Services. Founded in 1999, the company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with European operations headquartered in Southampton, UK. PEER 1 Hosting shares are traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX. For more information visit: www.peer1.com or www.peer1hosting.co.uk.

SOURCE Peer 1 Network Enterprises, Inc.