On what’s turned out to be a rather hot, but not sunny, week, it seems that no-one wants to be at work, due to heat-related lethargy.

One place where it is cool however, is our new datacentre which opened officially this week!  We think it’s rather cool (both literally cold, but also quite sexy as far as datacentres go).  There’s been no better time to pop in and have a tour of both our existing and the recently completed facilities.  We’re really proud of them and love to show them off.  I’m afraid you can’t bring your ice cream in with you though.

We picked up the Big Green Chip award in recognition of our green IT initiatives only a couple of weeks ago.  This week it was a Crain’s 40 under 40.  And perhaps next week we will be holding a coveted ISPA award.

Crain’s Manchester Business magazine, which runs the 40 under 40 awards, has firmly established itself on the city’s business scene within a short space of time.

So to be identified by a trusted and respected body as one of Manchester’s up and coming business people was quite an honour.  I was in some impressive company, which made the accolade really special.

The important thing for me is that the awards recognise Melbourne’s team, their commitment and skill.  Of course the 40 under 40 is focused on me, but I can say that without having that commitment and expertise I would not have been nominated or selected.

We have never really shouted about that before, but I am glad we are now.  Our investment in green IT, in supplying a superb service, in our high levels of customer service should be things that we talk about more often.  Winning awards does the talking for us.

Daniel Foster, Technical Director.

Melbourne has recruited two staff as it prepares to open its new 3,000 server data centre in June.

Rob Greenwood joins as lead developer and systems administrator.  Rob, who has worked at Auto Trader and UKFast, will be developing and supporting Melbourne’s UltraCloud and UltraFire offerings, as well as designing bespoke server solutions for clients.

Additionally Rob will be helping to further automate day-to-day tasks carried out by the support team.

Richard Legard joins Melbourne as an account manager from Legend Internet.  Richard’s main responsibilities fall within technical customer support and sales.

Daniel Foster, Technical Director of Melbourne comments: “Both Rob and Richard will significantly contribute to our approach in continually improving our systems and service and we’re delighted to welcome them to our small but growing team.”

“With our new data centre only a matter of a few weeks away the appointments show our commitment to customer service as we grow.”

We’re pleased to announce that the energy contract for our new Turing House datacentre has been signed.

The two year deal, worth over a quarter of a million pounds, sees us buying in renewable energy for our new facility, in line with our policy of trying to make a real effort to reduce our environmental impact.  You can see full details in our environmental policy.

The two year deal also fixes our energy prices in the new facility for two years, giving customers the comfort that no power price increases will come along for the next two years.

The new datacentre has been designed from the ground up with energy saving in mind, based on our previous datacentre building experience.

We invite customers to come for a datacentre tour to see what we’re doing first hand.

It’s our great pleasure to announce the details of our new Manchester datacentre, located in Turing House on the Manchester Technopark.

Construction is currently underway, and we’re expecting to move our offices into the new suite at the end of the month, with server hosting facilities expected to be online by the end of May.

The new facility will give us enough power and space for approximately 3000 servers, and will be completed to the high specification you’ve come to expect from Melbourne. Click here for a specification document.

The new facility will primarily focus on our managed hosting solutions, and will in turn free up rack space in Reynolds House for existing rack space customers. Customers waiting for power/space availability in Reynolds House should contact us to be put onto the short-list when more space becomes available, which should be around May/June.

The new facility highlights Melbourne’s commitment to investment in Manchester’s internet economy, and strengthens our position as one of the North West’s leading server hosting providers.

If you’d like further details of our new facility, please contact your account manager. We’ll email to update you when the facility is officially opened.