Networks Europe May/June 2016 | Page 6

06 NEWS IN BRIEF Networks Europe helps you to understand the art of the possible as the news desk highlights some of the stories currently catching their attention. 100 years: not out Ideal Networks is celebrating the 100th birthday of its parent company Ideal Industries, who have been designing tools and solutions that make a true difference for millions of professional tradesmen. 100 years ago, founder J. Walter Becker launched the IDEAL Commutator Dresser Company from his mother’s kitchen with the belief that every product should be worth more than its price. Service, he said, "Is a part of the product." Since then, Ideal Industries has grown into one of the world’s leading authorities on electrical install ation and testing. In its 100 years of business, Ideal Industries has acquired several other companies including the LAN tester division of Acterna (formally Wavetek) and one of the leading ATM, xDSL, SDH/Sonet, Gigabit Ethernet, and IP hand held testing equipment providers, Trend Communications, making Ideal Industries into the global giant it is today. Ideal Industries Inc. has achieved many industry firsts and they were proud to launch the market’s first hand-held Cat 5 cable certifier (LANTech 100) in 1993. Since then they have released the first tester for Class F/FA, the first dedicated tester for Cat 6A cabling, the first tester to include a tone generator and colour screen, and the first tester to have an auto test button on the remote to save time. Ideal Industries has grown to become a major manufacturer of portable test equipment with true heritage and expertise in both LAN and WAN installation and maintenance. Through the IDEAL Networks brand it now supplies industry-leading data cable testers, network testers and telecoms/enterprise testers throughout the world. n maincubes acquires Dutch data centre There is a high-performance data centre currently being built in the Rhine-Main area near to Frankfurt, by maincubes. Building on their international presence they have also recently confirmed their acquisition of a data centre in Amsterdam/Schiphol, Netherlands. maincubes and Interoute agreed on the purchase of the “Capronilaan 2 Amsterdam” data centre at the end of April 2016. The area around Schiphol airport is a popular location for data centres, along with London and Frankfurt. Its proximity to an important and high-performance European Internet hub, the high concentration of carriers and the international connections of a major airport are all key factors when considering demand. The location currently offers approximately 10,000 square feet of data centre space and offers a lot of capacity for potential, especially for additional customers. At full capacity it can provide more than 45,000 square feet in space. maincubes has confirmed that “It will make massive short-term investments in order to create a better performing technical and operational infrastructure” and that “Talks with key tenants have already begun.” n Product leadership by module ICTroom has been recognised by Frost & Sullivan for introducing a highly flexible range of Integrated Modular Data Centre (IMD) solutions into the European market. The recognition was based on recent analysis by Frost & Sullivan of the modular data centre market and specifically they recognised ICTroom for its “Product Line Strategy Leadership”. A spokesperson said that ICTroom has carved a niche for itself in the modular data centre space by positioning as an integrator with outstanding technological expertise. Adding that the company has a wide range of products that are both rich in value-added features and highly customisable, and that the recently launched IMD250 stands out for its ground-breaking flexibility. Frost & Sullivan’s Senior Industry Analyst Gautham Gnanajothi said that, “Significantly, the IMD portfolio is extremely scalable, even within the module itself. The IT capacity can be deployed in multiple phases and components and modules can be added concurrently, without any disruption to business. Owing to its portfolio expansion, ICTroom now offers more granular steps in scaling capacity and a new product line for micro-sites with requirements below 100 kW.” n www.networkseuropemagazine.com