Digital Realty and Schneider Electric establish new Digital Gateway for Southern Europe

Schneider Electric has partnered with Digital Realty to deliver its new HER1 Data Center in Heraklion, Crete.

Launched earlier this week as the first carrier-neutral facility on the island, HER1 plays a critical role in reducing Southern Europe’s digital connectivity and infrastructure gap by enabling the interconnection of international, regional and local subsea cables, empowering cloud, telco, and content delivery networks (CDNs) to better serve the surrounding regions.

Working in tandem with fast-growing markets including Athens, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, and Tel Aviv, HER1 forms a central part of Digital Realty’s Mediterranean data center platform and takes a major step towards establishing Greece as a strategic connectivity hub for Southern and Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Following a successful prefabricated data center deployment at its Marseille 2 (MRS2) facility, Digital Realty leveraged a turnkey, Tier III solution from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxureä Modular Data Center portfolio to overcome a host of challenges at HER1. They included requirements for accelerated speed-to-market with a target to become operational within twelve months, increased levels of energy efficiency, and off-site production, testing, and delivery due to HER1’s remote location in Crete.

To achieve this, Schneider Electric provided a purpose-built solution including two, fully integrated, prefabricated power modules containing MV, transformers, LV, UPS equipment and air-cooling systems. Additionally, it deployed two, large-scale, all-in-one Data Halls, complete with power, cooling and IT, utilizing Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure monitoring solution for buildings management and electrical power management systems (EPMS).

Further, Schneider Electric provided the compete spectrum of data center design, build and consultancy services, including all mechanical, electrical (M&E) and software equipment, production, assembly, commissioning and security services. This enabled Digital Realty’s HER1 facility to meet its demanding deployment timeframes, while minimizing the risk of failures during its on-site installation.

"Digital Realty’s substantial investment in our new Heraklion data center highlights our dedication to establishing the Mediterranean as a global connectivity hub, connecting continents and enabling digital transformation,” said Fabrice Coquio, SVP Digital Realty in France. “Thanks to our strategic partnership with Schneider Electric, we are accelerating the time to market of this critical project to

quickly meet the surging digital traffic demands in the region, while enhancing network resilience and diversity for enterprises and communities alike."

A new gateway for southern Europe

According to Telegeography, international bandwidth in southern Europe has seen over 30% compound annual growth since 2016, representing an 6X increase in transmission capacity to the region.

Due to its geographical location and the ongoing investments in submarine networks such as 2Africa, Andromeda, East to Med Corridor (EMC), Medusa, and Thetis, many organizations are selecting Crete as a strategic destination for cable termination and data center deployments - transforming the region into a global interconnection hub that brings multiple continents together.

HER1, Digital Realty’s first carrier-neutral data center in Crete, is located next to the landing point of several of these subsea cable systems and will offer a highly resilient data center capacity to the cloud, subsea cable and connectivity communities.

“For many years Schneider Electric has partnered with Digital Realty to meet exacting standards for its data center buildouts globally, and our work together at HER1 demonstrates the massive potential that prefabricated solutions present to meet demanding deployment timeframes, while minimizing risk,” said Pablo Ruiz Escribano , Senior Vice President, Secure Power and Data Center Business, Schneider Electric, Europe. “The successful delivery of HER1 represents a major turning point for data center deployments in Southern Europe, and by establishing this new global connectivity hub in Crete, Digital Realty will connect customers across continents for many years to come.”