13 February 2012 - Categories for the annual Datacentre Awards (www.datacentreawards.com) for UK, Europe and CEE have been announced by the Judges Panel for the 2012 gala ceremony, which takes place in June in London.

The panel of expert Judges now includes representatives from the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany. Now in its 5th year, the Awards provide exceptional marketing differentiation for both winners and runners up and are recognised as the premier industry event for the UK, Europe and CEE.

This year’s categories are designed to reflect changes in markets and technologies, but retain their focus on recognising excellence across the datacentre and cloud sector.

As the datacentre population continues to expand internationally additional capacity is launched each year and targeted at differing market sectors, either commercial (Co-location, Managed Hosting and Managed Services) or Enterprise. The European Award for New Datacentre Facility is aimed at recognising key attributes of the facility and its development – Integrated design, environmental performance and agility.

The European Award for Colocation is seeking operators who achieve differentiation through technical innovation, commercial or service and product offering an extra dimension beyond the specification of the facility itself.

A growing range of options such as containerised solutions and pre-fabricated modules with varying levels of fit out has introduced a new award this year for the Modular datacentre solution.

The European Award for Cloud Infrastructure seeks to identify a business that has an established Cloud offering (Private or Public or both) where compute infrastructure can be supplied and consumed as a utility service.

Achievement and leadership in the launch of Cloud services to audiences across any geography will be recognised in the European Award for Cloud Services.

Managed Services forms a key offering in the Hosting community. Service Providers scale many solutions – from generic services to dedicated ICT offerings and equally differ from SME to Large scale services integrator. The European Award for Managed Services Provider aims to demonstrate where service providers have brought an extra dimension to the marketplace.

In one of the most sought after categories last year, the European Award for Energy Efficiency in DataCentres will recognize a Datacentre facility, or a team within the owning company with a demonstrable track record established in the last 12 months, that can be used as an exemplar to the European datacentre industry of energy efficiency innovation.

A further new award category for 2012, the European Award for Data Centre Entrepreneur will honour an individual or team, who innovate through leadership demonstrated by entrepreneurship – this category is very broad and ranges across service management, new entrant, significant business growth or development of best in-class solutions.

The Technology Architect plays a critical role in contributing to the overall DataCentre product, tightly managing multiple independent platforms that span the facility. This year the Awards brings acknowledgement of this important role with the European Award for DataCentre Technology Architect.

As the datacentre industry expands globally, the award for CxO will honour inspirational leadership with achievement in marketing flair, commercial success, significant business growth, and uniqueness in approach.

Finally, the Datacentre Change and Innovation Award is for a person, team, business or product offering that has significantly influenced the data centre industry through change and innovation. This category is not restricted to product, but may attract entrants that have influenced the industry through service change or innovation.

“This year’s Awards will be more sought after than ever, as the industry seeks to distinguish excellence in a highly competitive marketplace,” commented Ashley Davis, chairman of the panel of Judges. “The Awards provide an invaluable benchmark for datacentre and cloud companies, and are the only to do so at European level. 2012 looks set to be another tremendous opportunity for the sector.”

The Awards ceremony and dinner will be held at Merchant Taylors Hall in the City of London. Gold Sponsor is Digital Realty.

Contact
Julia Vockrodt
[email protected]
+44 (0)208 964 0260