The winners of the 2011 DatacenterDynamics Datacentre Leaders’ Awards were announced last night during a gala dinner at London’s Lancaster Hotel.

This year’s awards saw a record number of entries from more countries than ever before, and record attendance at the evening event.

MC for the awards was publisher and broadcaster, Andrew Neil and a charity auction on behalf of SPARKS was led by actor Robert Powell.

The Outstanding Contribution to the Industry Award was made to Liam Newcombe - the unanimous selection of the judging panel for his ‘relentless’ contribution of knowledge and expertise to the international data center and IT communities over the past six years.

Newcombe has chaired the best practice working group within the EU Code of Conduct for data centres, championing energy efficiency in every area of the industry. He was also personally involved in getting UK Government to adopt the code.

Newcombe said his win came as a surprise. “I feel that I’ve accepted this Award on behalf of the many people that I’ve worked with on the EU Code of Conduct and CEEDA (the Certified Energy Efficient Datacentre Award),” Newcombe said.

“From the point of view of the BCS, the people that take my theoretical work and make it something real in data centres make an equally important contribution to this industry.”

Headline sponsors Mercury Engineering presented the European Data Centre Business Leader of the Year Award to Paul Flatt, Group Chairman of M&E consultants hurleypalmerflatt.

Flatt has transformed his company into an international multi-disciplinary consultancy; today the largest privately owned engineering consultancy in the UK.

He has led the business through a phase of significant international growth, winning a top ten place in the 2010 Sunday Times HSBC International Track 100 for fastest export growth.

With 14 offices in Europe, Asia, and North America, hurleypalmerflatt serves some of the largest data center operators in the world with innovative engineering solutions, through a team of highly regarded experts.

Flatt said the company’s success is based on two factors: “We do our research and we employ the best people.”

A lot of people underestimate the complexity of getting a data center built, from planning regulations to construction and commissioning,” Flatt said.

“We make it easy for our customers to succeed; we always tell them the truth and never underestimate the difficulty of meeting their objectives.”

The Future Thinking & Design Concepts Award, sponsored by Schneider Electric, was awarded to British company, Excool, for its indirect adiabatic cooling system.

The system, which can be used anywhere in the world, harnesses the cooling effect of air and water for a sustainable and renewable approach to data center cooling also minimizing the use of electrical energy for operation.

The Data Center Blueprints Award, sponsored by Citadel 100, was awarded to UK data center developer Infinity SDC for its data center “Blueprint for High Resilience with Optimal Efficiency in the Urban Environment.”

The Innovation in the Micro-Data centre Award, sponsored by JCA Group, went to Dutch cable operator Ziggo.

The Innovation in the Medium-Data centre Award, sponsored by MPL Sales, went to Megatron for its Green Data Park, Centurian. This is the first ever Data Centre Leaders Award winner from Africa.

The Innovation in the Mega-Data center Award, sponsored by Hitachi, went to Linxdatacenter for its 12MW data center in St Petersburg, Russia. The Tier III facility includes state-of-the-art power, cooling, construction and security practices.

The Leadership in the Public Sector Award, sponsored by Rittal was awarded to Leicester University, partnered by Keysource, for its high performance computing data centre project. 
The Innovations in Outsourcing Award, sponsored by Norland Managed Services, was made to Adapt for its Adapt Enterprise Virtual Data Centre, a production grade platform for the delivery of virtual infrastructure.

Sponsored by Siemens, the Green Data Centre Award went to Datacenter Oostkamp for DCO2, a green data center with a PUE of 1.06. The facility includes a solar roof and a 4000m3 water buffer in a reservoir beneath the data halls which can be drawn upon to provide cooling resilience.

The Improved Data Centre Energy Efficiency Award, sponsored by the Green Grid was awarded to Six Degrees for its retro-fit direct fresh air cooling solution which operates for 95% of the time and has reduced the company’s cooling energy requirements by 90%.

The Innovation in IT Optimisation Award is sponsored by Colt went to F5 Rackspace for its hybrid cloud offering with BIG IP Local Traffic Manager.

The Most Extreme Data Centre Deployment Award, sponsored by Virtus, and went to IO Datacenters for their Datacenter 2.0 modular platform.

The Young Mission Critical Engineer of the Year Award, sponsored by Red Engineering, was awarded to Zac Potts, a 24 year-old research and development/ engineering specialist in the data centre division at Sudlows Limited.

The Data Centre 'Special Assignment' Team of the Year Award, sponsored by CBRE, recognised the VISA Europe Project Torch team, led by Mike Hall, senior facilities manager.