The Deltalis RadixCloud data center is located at an extreme location deep within the Swiss Alps, with the project shortlisted for the finals of DatacenterDynamics EMEA 2012 Awards this month.

In the category ‘Most Extreme Data Center Deployment’, European supplier Minkels and operator Deltalis see it as a recognition for their ‘modular’ thinking in the data center environment.

Lying deep inside a mountain near the Swiss Gotthard massif, the location offers clients of Deltalis an extreme secure Tier IV colocation facility.

It’s also a highly energy-efficient data center facility, using the mountain’s natural cooling resources (glacier water, for example) to set new standards in Green IT.

"The modularity and energy-efficiency of Minkels’ solutions fully matched our detailed and location specific requirements,” says Michael Imfeld, VP Marketing & Sales at Deltalis.

“Modularity in the data center solutions being offered, together with Minkels’ approach to fully customize its solutions on top of that, helped us to create a maximum of efficiency in our data center infrastructure.

"The infrastructure now connects seamlessly with the capricious cave-like environment.”

Formerly housing the Command and Control centre for the Swiss Air Force, the rock chambers of the Deltalis RadixCloud data center provide a huge space, consisting of several multi storey buildings built into the granite rock, providing its customers with military-grade secured colocation space.

Deltalis has vaulted ceilings in separated rooms and pillars around which colocation facilities had to be created.

“By offering modularity and full customization as standard features we meet challenges associated with deployment in ‘difficult’ locations such as the Swiss Mountains project," says Jeroen Hol, CEO Minkels.

"It also facilitates current developments regarding the evolving data center dynamics and increasing need for flexibility and scalability when it comes to cloud computing and virtualization."

The DatacenterDynamics EMEA 2012 Awards will see over 600 industry professionals celebrate excellence across the data center industry, recognising innovation, leadership and ‘out of the box’ thinking in the data center industry.

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