maincubes, an independent European data center operator and an expert in colocation, is a Founding Member of the Independent Data Center Alliance, a consortium of independent data center and carrier hotel operators. The IND-DCA met with Joris te Lintelo, Senior Vice President – International Sales, of maincubes, at International Telecoms Week (ITW) for a sit-down interview to learn more about what is in store for maincubes.
Joris te Lintelo is the Senior Vice President of International Sales at maincubes, a Germany-based organization with headquarters in Frankfurt. maincubes launched its first data center in 2017 and underwent considerable growth in the organization ever since. maincubes currently operates data centers in Frankfurt and Amsterdam and has announced further expansion with three new data center facilities in Frankfurt and Berlin.
IND-DCA: What is maincubes current European expansion plans and how will the expansion impact the European data center market?
Joris te Lintelo, Sr. VP at maincubes:
Currently, maincubes has pinpoints in Frankfurt (FRA01) and Amsterdam (AMS01). Our recently announced developments include new data centers in Berlin and Frankfurt. As an organization, we are also exploring future expansion in other German cities, in Amsterdam and possibly into other European markets. First and foremost, we are in the process of building three new data centers in Germany. The entire capacity in FRA02 has already been contracted by the market before we even broke ground. Regarding BER01 we expect the same to happen. Last but not least, regarding FRA03, we have just started the pre-sales process and have already seen great interest from the market. We have 16MW available and interested companies can now start the discussion with us to secure future capacity blocks. Getting access to future capacity could be of great importance. For example, cloud companies can have guaranteed capacity available to support their future growth! FRA03 however will be a multi-tenant colocation facility with 16MW of available IT capacity.
The European data center market is continuing to grow exponentially. Our vision is to continue developing data centers based on our prediction of seeing significant demand for data center services in major European hubs including Frankfurt and Berlin. We are also targeting international customers who are looking for European data center services and who deal with our current German and Dutch customers.
IND-DCA: Climate change is a high priority. Sustainability and environmental protection are becoming increasingly important. What can companies rely on when choosing maincubes as a sustainable colocation data center operator?
Joris te Lintelo:
maincubes understands the importance of designing and building sustainable data centers from the initial idea on data center design to our custom built-in technology. Becoming eco-friendly and sustainable is pivotal to the market and will be a major competitive advantage.
On the other hand, maincubes utilizes innovative concepts from data center design to construction completion. In the design process, we focus on the efficiency of the building. A data center with smaller customer suites and tailored services meets the customers unique requirements for efficiency in comparison to juggling 60 customers in one large data center and trying to find a common denominator for services such as cooling. A custom-tailored data center allows us to focus on the appropriate cooling for each individual suite, and we can build technology to meet the customer’s requirements whether it is immersion cooling or liquid cooling, for example. Within 5 to 10 years, more of this technology will become available and legislation could also tighten when it comes to efficiency and sustainability.
We have seen great feedback from the market and our existing customers on our new data center design and efficiency. Our customers rely on maincubes because as a company, we are committed to the conservation of resources and committed to the use of our modern, energy-conserving cooling systems, 100% renewable energy from nearby resources and power efficiency in all of our data center locations.
IND-DCA: What sustainability initiative has maincubes implemented throughout the company and data center locations?
Joris te Lintelo:
At maincubes, we are focusing on the technology aspect when it comes to sustainability including technology flexibility, private suite setups, cooling systems and so on. There are innovations such as immersion cooling and implementing OCP (Open Compute Project), focusing on redesigning data center hardware technology to become more efficient.
The first European Open Compute Project Experience Center is located within the maincubes AMS01 data center in Amsterdam. maincubes will only be using energy derived from 100% renewable, nearby resources and re-use waste heat for future developments. As a company, maincubes is following our values and one of those core values is sustainability. All of our internal processes are focused on sustainability. When it comes to our data center facilities, our design and construction phases follow a combination of long-term usables and high quality data center locations that makes utilizing renewable energy and resources possible. maincubes has already confirmed to become C02 neutral in the upcoming years.
IND-DCA: What other criteria do you believe is essential to the data center? For example, independent certifications? What other trends are being seen across the European data center market?
Joris te Lintelo:
When it comes to services, data center owners and operators must focus on the core competence of the data center. maincubes understands our role to complement and facilitate our customers with our neutrality and allow customers to buy exactly what they need to fulfill their ecosystem requirements. maincubes prides itself on our origin and ownership, independent and part of a 100% German private company. In terms of our data centers, we will always be compliant to the highest level of regulations in regards to data sovereignty and environmental initiatives, which in our humble opinion will even become more essential in future.
As a German company, maincubes goes the extra mile to exceed all expectations when it comes to being compliant to the law. To be certified means to disclose what you are doing and have initiated in order to position yourself for the future. Therefore, certifications are an important criterion when choosing an external colocation data center because neutral and audited criteria show how secure your facilities are, components, data, management and organizational systems as well as the processes in the data center.
At maincubes, we strive to be proactive in the data center sector. We offer a number of things that are not always mandatory but are often preferred by certain customer segments. For example, building private clouds in our data center and offering our customers direct access to the public cloud. We believe that there is a market for higher flexibility, a market that doesn’t need a full suite of services from a single provider. While abiding by the certifications, we are focused on the core data center services and the evolution in the market shows us that not all customers are looking for a full suite of services necessarily, but many desire the ability to choose their preferred service providers with maincubes providing the baseline of services. We have a clear focus on the market segment of the customers who need this baseline for connectivity.
IND-DCA: Currently, there are already many large colocation data center providers in and around Frankfurt. What is special about maincubes and what makes it different as a partner?
Joris te Lintelo:
Unlike many data center companies, maincubes differs from others due to our ownership structure. We are a truly European, independent company in a market dominated by non-European operators and owners. We are fully compliant and oversee the stability and sustainability of our company. The market will see within the next few years that existing data centers that are not built with inherent sustainable operations and scalability will become obsolete. Here at maincubes, we are providing more and more capacity in major European markets while abiding to all current and future sustainability regulations. We are facilitating neutral ecosystems and offer a complementing proposition. maincubes is focused solely on colocation and data center white space in comparison to other data center providers around Frankfurt and other European markets.
IND-DCA: More United State businesses are looking to expand capabilities in Europe, working with local providers, where possible, ensures data center infrastructure and the regulations affecting data align with policies that matter. How does maincubes fit in here?
Joris te Lintelo:
In fact, we are the only independent European colocation data center provider with data centers in Frankfurt, Berlin and Amsterdam. The highest level of data sovereignty is due to ownership structure and locations. Some European customers find it very important that their data resides in a European data center. This could be a critical factor of non-European cloud providers who want to be successful in the European market. maincubes is a data center facility based in Frankfurt, Germany with a German ownership structure. We operate facilities in Germany and in the Netherlands.
The company is subject to European data protection standards and German principles. This commitment to data security guarantees GDPR compliance and auditability. maincubes offers a flexible approach to customer data deployment, backed by contracts that give clients the control over their data in order to be compliant with the GDPR data sovereignty rules. A multi-level access control system gives customers the ability to configure sophisticated hybrid cloud deployments. Working with maincubes, an American company can keep European data in Europe, complying with the most strict data sovereignty laws but preserving the control and data management functions it needs to be data-driven and agile.
