US company ServiceNow to develop Dublin data centre

Company will also open a facility in Newport in the UK as part of increased investment

New York-listed digital work company ServiceNow is to develop a new data centre in Dublin, the company announced on Monday.

It said the investment would continue to “support customers’ digital transformation journeys and illustrates ServiceNow’s commitment and investment in Europe, and in its growing operations in Ireland”.

As part of its increased investment in its data centre infrastructure, it will also open a facility in Newport in Wales.

These new data centres will establish two new pairings for the hosting of customer data: an EU-sovereign pair between Amsterdam and Dublin and a UK-sovereign pair between London and Newport.

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The company said the new data centre pairings would form part of its “advanced high-availability architecture and will continue to ensure the scalability of its cloud services”.

The new Amsterdam and Dublin data centre pair went live earlier this month, with the London/Newport pair expected to go live imminently.

This investment takes ServiceNow’s global data centre pairs to 11, spanning five continents, and supported by six global support centres to serve customers’ digital transformation needs.

“Our commitment to Ireland is unwavering and this key investment illustrates how that continues to evolve and grow,” said Mark Cockerill, vice-president, legal and head of global privacy.

“The new data centre facilities will provide further infrastructure that supports customers’ requirements in an ever-changing global and European landscape.

“Some customers, especially in public sector, have been more cautious in their adoption of cloud technologies owing to a fear of the unknown, particularly in a post-Brexit Europe.

“These new facilities will enable us to better service those organisations, including our local Irish customers, addressing their requirements and further engendering their trust and comfort.”

Omdia analyst Roy Illsley said: “Brexit seems a forgotten event now Covid-19 has become the focus of attention globally, but in both scenarios, the need for resilient cloud-based geographic capacity is of paramount importance.

“ServiceNow operates a twin pair approach to delivering its services to customers with the data centres in the same region.

“By opening two new data centres, one in Dublin as the twin for Amsterdam, and the other in Newport, the twin for London, any concerns around a post-Brexit world have been answered for ServiceNow customers.

“Omdia believes that both Brexit and Covid-19 will increase demand for cloud-based services as organisations look to become more agile, flexible, and adopt an opex approach to service delivery as they look to link IT expenditure more directly to business activity.”

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson is an Irish Times reporter