Digital Realty Is Expanding Data Centers in Zagreb

Digital Realty Hrvatska continues with the expansion of its data center in Zagreb by building a new one. Goran Đoreski, director of Digital Realty Hrvatska, in an interview for ICT business, adds that ZAG2 will be built as a mixed-use building that will be able to flexibly meet the needs of different types of users.

The announced expansion is very ambitious. What specific project is it about, where will the new data center be located and what will it look like?

The space for the new data center has been secured as part of the business zone in Jankomir. That size of land is usually enough for a data center up to the size of 30 MW. The rough design is finished and visualizations are currently being created. The project will be built in at least two phases. It will be in line with our usual build standard, which has proven to be the best for our target customers, similar to, for example, the FRA29 data center (Sossenheim Property Brochure (digitalrealty.com)).

What does this mean for Digital Realty's positioning in this market and who do you expect in your new data center?

ZAG2 will be constructed as a mixed-use building, which will flexibly be able to meet the needs of various types of users. At the moment we are primarily addressing enterprise and telco users in Croatia and Southeast Europe. Southeast Europe is part of our wider Mediterranean strategy, which includes our highly developed hub in Marseille, but also those that are now developing, such as Barcelona, Rome, Crete, and Tel Aviv.

What technologies and solutions will be used in the new data center (green technologies, advanced systems...)?

Systems are designed aiming at the highest technologically available energy efficiency. I am primarily referring to cooling systems and energy supply systems. In addition, we intend to introduce alternative sources of energy and return part of the produced heat to the community for heating, if there is the will and technical capabilities on the part of the city's heating system. We aim for high redundancy with five-nines of availability level. Security and monitoring will be set by our global standard, which will enable all users in the world to monitor the services provided in Zagreb, in real-time. The communication connection will be redundant, and our Service Fabric platform for connecting to the cloud will also be available. Digital Realty is a company that leads the global market in the construction and management of data centers, and ZAG2 will be secure, sustainable, and cost-effective colocation facilities, ultimately accelerating the adoption of hybrid IT in Southeast Europe.