Yotta Infrastructure propels India as the next hyperscale data centre destination
Big Interview

Yotta Infrastructure propels India as the next hyperscale data centre destination

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Sunil Gupta, Managing Partner & CEO of Yotta Infrastructure Solutions.

Q. What does it mean to be awarded the Tier IV certificate?

Yotta’s first hyperscale datacenter Yotta NM1, located near Mumbai, received the Tier IV Design certification from Uptime Institute in May 2020 and we are absolutely delighted!

Uptime Institute’s Tier certifications are gold standards for data center performance. Uptime rates you on the outcome and performance rather than following a prescriptive checklist. An Uptime Institute Tier IV data center assures enterprises of the top-quality real-world performance. Having said that, often it is assumed that building a Tier IV facility does not make sense economically and if one builds it, it is meant only for hyperscale customers or large enterprises who run mission critical applications. However, with our smart and innovative engineering, combined with our domain expertise and hard work we have not only been able to achieve the epitome of quality – Tier IV certification but at the same time are able to offer an economical viable solution to customers.

We are also the largest designed Tier IV data center certified by Uptime Institute in Asia, second in the world and the only one in India with an active Uptime Institute Tier IV design certification. This certification is just the beginning; we’re moving forward with the Uptime Institute Tier Certification of Constructed Facility (TCCF), which is expected to be completed and earned over the next few weeks.

Q. What are the advantages at Yotta NM1 for CSPs?

For Cloud Service Providers, the most important things are connectivity, scalability, and availability. Yotta NM1, is the largest Uptime Institute Tier IV designed data center in Asia. This endorses our quality and scalability in terms of space, power and connectivity. Our data center campus houses our power distribution infrastructure; we are also licensed to distribute the power via our group company. For green energy, we are commissioning our solar power plant and natural gas-based power generation plant adjacent to the data center. This will make us self-reliant in our power needs, and in-turn will offer our customers considerable savings on power tariff.

On the connectivity side, our data center park has bulk fiber connectivity from all major telecom operators, thus reaching all business districts, data centers and landing stations within and outside greater Mumbai region. To give unlimited fiber capacity to hyperscaler’s and OTT operators between their various points of presence, we are creating a unique and first of its kind Inter-Data Center Metro Fiber Network, connecting Yotta DC to all other data centers, fiber landing stations and stock exchanges in India. The combination of these two network elements gives our customers a true carrier-neutral data center site coupled with a high capacity, high availability, and low latency network between their major content clusters. Thus, CSPs get a 99.999% uptime reliability and a complete state-of-the-art IT ecosystem to deploy their services for their customers from day one.

Q. What security measures have you taken to secure the site?

For any data center, security is of prime importance. Yotta NM1 is secured with 13 layers of security, like physical security checks, PTZ cameras/CCTV, Mantraps, and other conventional security measures that you find everywhere. However, we are the only data center in India to secure our data center with chemical and narcotics detector. We also have implemented Zero Trust Policy at our data center, which makes our internal employees also adhere to all the security check process just like an outsider.

Q. What are the expansion plans for the site in the coming years?

Besides the currently launched NM1 data centre, having a capacity of 7200 racks with 50 MW of power, we already have our NM2 data centre building of 9000 racks and 60 MW, ready next door in core and shell format and we shall be initiating fitout of the same as soon as either we get an anchor customer to take a major share of that building or we reach a utilisation capacity of 60% in NM1. In additional to these two data centres, we have plans to add three more data centre buildings each of about 5000 racks and 35 MW of power, in the same campus of 18 acres.

Q. Is Yotta looking at building similar developments in other parts of India?

We are planning to build three data center parks spread across 11 buildings in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in the coming two years. The combined capacity of these parks will be 60,000 racks and 500 MW of power. We continue to explore opportunities in other data center markets in India like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata, and some emerging economies in APAC/Middle East regions. We shall plan to invest accordingly in coming 5 to 7 years.

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