Power Hungry Boss at UKFast Makes Critical Appointment

22-2-2013 — /europawire.eu/ — Cloud hosting and data centre specialist UKFast bolstered its data centre property division today with the appointment of one of the industry’s biggest hitters to Director of Critical Power.

Miles Allen joins the £20 million turnover company as it continues to grow its data centre portfolio across Manchester and scope out opportunities for growth across the UK.

As Director of Critical Power, Allen oversees the design and development of the company’s buildings including its new Manchester HQ, acquired earlier this month for £3.2 million.

His appointment comes as UKFast continues on its mission to boost connectivity in the North West through data centre development, having opened the doors to its £14m DCPlex™ in Trafford Park in December 2012.

The complex incorporates three new facilities, MaNOC® 5, 6 and 7 Manchester Network Operation Centres, alongside the firm’s first wholly-owned data centre MaNOC4. The investment creates much-needed competition for the data centre market.

Allen joins UKFast from Sudlows, where he developed and delivered mission-critical environments for blue chip, public and private sector clients including Co-op. He brings more than 25 years’ experience in design consultancy, facilities and project management to UKFast, allowing the company to develop the full circle of data centre development expertise in-house.

Lawrence Jones, CEO of UKFast, says: “Miles is the reason we chose Sudlows to design our first data centre. He gave me the confidence to push the button on the project.

“His knowledge, understanding and expertise in the data centre world is unprecedented. Whilst this is a massive loss to Sudlows, it’s a huge gain for UKFast.

“We’d taken on significantly more of the design and build of our two most recent data centres than previously but it was Miles’ designs and knowledge that we relied upon. With Miles in the team we have the expertise in-house to manage our existing portfolio to the highest standard as well as shape our future.”

Allen now heads up the engineering division of UKFast, managing the technical portfolio along with the mechanical engineering for ten properties within the UKFast portfolio.

Allen and his team are now in the design stages of the latest data centre, MaNOC 8, in UKFast’s new 40,000sq ft Headquarters in Manchester Science Park which offers high-density computing solutions with power densities of 40KW per rack. This is the first data centre of its kind in Manchester for commercial colocation and hosting environments.

The facility sets UKFast apart from traditional low-density colocation offerings and further enhances the data centre portfolio and customer base.

Jones continues: “Opening the DCPlex marks a real milestone for Manchester. It’s Manchester’s first wholesale data centre model and is being incredibly well received. The city is rapidly becoming the new digital hub of the UK and more data centre space and better connectivity will be the key to its success.

“To continue our expansion and develop the biggest, most powerful data centres Manchester has ever seen, we need world-class experts with fantastic experience and this is exactly what we have with Miles.”

Allen said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be joining UKFast. I have known Lawrence and his team for a number of years. They already feel like my data centres. I built them and they are my designs. To now be managing them and designing the future is exactly where I want to be. Manchester needs more great data centres and we are perfectly placed to deliver them.”

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