INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology
Study finds 350 million
end-users to be within 30
milliseconds of Stockholm
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A
whitepaper has identified
Stockholm as a prime location
for data centres. From the capital
of Sweden, data centre operators and
service providers can reach a market of 350
million users within 30 milliseconds of
round-trip delay.
By targeting northern Europe and western
Russia from Stockholm, data centres can
also benefit from low-carbon electricity, the
lowest electricity prices in the EU and an
opportunity to receive payment for excess
heat, which is used for residential heating
in the city. The study has been produced
by Telia Carrier, Invest Stockholm and
Stockholm Data Parks.
In the whitepaper, the population of
northern Europe was mapped and
visualised. With the major metropolitan
areas identified, the authors measured the
round-trip delay (RTD) from Stockholm
to various northern European Points-of-
FOR THE
NORTHERN
EUROPEAN
MARKET, MOST
APPLICATIONS CAN
BE EFFICIENTLY
SERVED FROM
DATA CENTRES
IN THE SWEDISH
CAPITAL.
www.intelligentcio.com
Presence (PoPs) within Telia Carrier’s #1
ranked global IP backbone, which connects
the region’s major cities with minimal delay.
All measurements were made using the
carrier’s dedicated, multi-path fibre network
and professional telecom equipment
(providing more exact data than a simple
‘ping’ measurement). By combining the
data, it was possible to estimate the market
size reachable from Stockholm expressed as
a function of the round-trip delay.
The whitepaper also explores how sensitive
different applications are to network delay.
It found that, with the exception of financial
trading and software mirroring, there are few
applications for which the user experience
will be adversely affected by additional
latency from remote server location in
Stockholm. It concludes that for the northern
European market, most applications can
be efficiently served from data centres in
the Swedish capital. In short, it was found
that data centre relocation to Sweden,
and Stockholm in particular, presents a
compelling and sustainable opportunity for
an energy-intensive industry to source cheap
electricity with a low carbon footprint, while
operating within acceptable latency limits.
It is possible to implement a site location
strategy for Northern Europe, whereby
a significant share of users’ applications
are hosted remotely in Stockholm – with
competitive OPEX, real estate costs and
mitigation of negative environmental effects
through the use of renewable electricity
sources and payment for reuse of excess
heat. Significantly, this approach can deliver
significant annual cost savings for data
centre operators and their customers. n
INTELLIGENTCIO
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