Sustainability, efficiency and true innovation in data centre design and operations across public and private sectors in the UK, Ireland and Europe. were all recognised in the sector’s most prestigious awards which are fast becoming established as the industry’s most prized accolades.

This year saw eleven awards recognise companies and projects and three going to individuals.

Michael Tobin, TelecityGroup CEO received the Data Centre Business Leader of the Year award. He said: “I’m thrilled to have received this award – which is really down to the hard work of everyone at TelecityGroup. It has been a very important year for the data centre industry and for TelecityGroup; data centres have an integral place in our digital future and TelecityGroup’s ongoing growth and investment keeps us at the very heart of this. Raising the profile of the industry is important, for example ensuring that the role of the connected data centre was recognised in the Digital Britain report, and demonstrating that we can take on the environmental challenge we face head on through, for instance, the adoption of the EU’s Code of Conduct for data centres. I am pleased that we have been recognised for continuing to bring the data centre industry to the attention of a wider business audience, to ensure it remains integral to the growing digital economy. All of our employees work tremendously hard to ensure the company is an industry leader and I’m delighted their efforts have been rewarded with such a prestigious accolade.”

IBM Fellow Dr. Roger Schmidt collected the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry – see separate story.

Tom Kingham of Red Engineering was named Young Mission Critical Engineer of the Year.

The full awards categories and winners list:

Award: Future Thinking and Design Concepts
Winner: Infinity ONE

Award: Innovation in the Micro Data Centre
Winner: Bristol City Council

Award: Innovation in the Medium Data Centre
Winner: Petroluem Geo - Services

Award: Innovation in the Mega Data Centre
Winner: Microsoft

Award: Leadership in the Public Sector
Winner: Sanctuary Group 

Award: Innovation in an Outsourced Environment
Winner: ControlCircle

Damien Milkins, CEO of Controlcircle said: "Receiving this award is a great honour, especially considering the quality of the competition we faced. We are extremely proud of this award as it recognises our expertise in delivering enterprise class solutions."

Award: The 'Green' Data Centre
Winner: Custodian Data Centre

Award: Improved Data Centre Energy Efficiency
Winner: Morgan Stanley

Award: Data Centre Transformation
Winner: Fujitsu

Roger Gilbert CEO Fujitsu UK & Ireland comments, “When Fujitsu designed our London North Data Centre, we created a highly efficient, sustainable and reliable centre for our customer’s business systems. In these difficult times, customers seek even greater levels of business efficiency; Fujitsu’s new IT infrastructure-as-a-Service installed in London North is built to deliver the higher efficiencies that UK corporations need as part of building for their business growth and prosperity in the new decade. We are very pleased to collect the award for Datacentre Transformation and to be recognised for the second year running at the Datacentre Leaders Awards. ”

Award: Data Centre Operational Team of the Year
Winner: Computacenter

Award: The Wildcard Award
Winner: TelecityGroup France

Stéphane Duproz, Managing Director TelecityGroup France commented: “We are extremely pleased that we have been acknowledged for the unique and innovative design of the new facility, which has been built to be the most advanced and high quality data centre in Europe, both technically and environmentally. TelecityGroup maximises the use of innovation in ensuring the energy efficiency of its facilities, and this data centre is a great example of best practice for the Group.”

AWARDS SUPPLEMENT - Feb.2010
Look out for the full review of award winning projects and people in a special supplement to be published with the February issue of DatacenterDynamicsFOCUS magazine (to include a review of all finalists too.)