BT has selected Ark Data Centres Limited as a new UK data centre supplier and is adding Ark’s sites in the south of England to its BT Compute portfolio to meet the growing demand for sustainable and compliant cloud-based services. Under the multi-year contract, BT will use Ark’s state-of-the-art data centres to develop new managed cloud services for organisations where enhanced security is paramount; such as central and local government, defence and security, police and health.

Following a detailed and full analysis of the UK data centre market, BT chose Ark Data Centres’ campuses for their high security, outstanding efficiency and low total cost of ownership, and for Ark’s extensive industry and public sector experience. Thanks to unique cooling technology, Ark’s data centres are the most environmentally efficient in the UK. They save Ark’s customers on average around £1.1 million per megawatt and 6,000 tonnes of taxable carbon annually compared with an average data centre facility.

“We were, quite simply, looking for the best data centre site in the UK and Ark stood out with its unique data centre design,” said Neil Lock, Vice President, BT Compute, BT Global Services. “Ark’s commitment to delivering secure and sustainable services with the lowest possible environmental impact complements our efforts to help our cloud customers reduce their carbon emissions too. Ark also impressed us with their ability to work as a partner in delivering current and future innovative cloud and hosting products to our customers.”

Ark’s flexible data centre design uses highly energy efficient modular data centre systems, allowing BT to deploy new services quickly, and expand the data centres at the rapid rate their business growth demands. The IT ready solution allows new racks to be added as needed, with a go-live of just 48 hours - saving weeks compared to standard data centre deployments.

As well as providing best-in-class data centre facilities, Ark also adheres to strict facilities management and operations practices to maintain the highest service levels. In May, Ark Data Centres received Uptime Institute’s Management & Operations (M&O) Stamp of Approval for operational excellence for both its sites.

“We are delighted to support BT as its new data centre partners. We not only provide world leading data centres, we also pride ourselves in running and managing all our data centres to the highest standards,” said Huw Owen, CEO, Ark. “Our customers know they can rely on maximum data centre performance and uptime, as well as the highest security levels and the highest efficiency in the industry. We are looking forward to delivering those benefits to BT and its customers.”