Volta Data Centre has launched a new utility based billing scheme for its London site, which it says will make first time cloud and colocation deals easy for beginners.

The Power by the Hour initiative is the first time a London data center has offered an affordable pay per use model for non-commited users, claimed Volta MD Jon Arnold.

Volta’s Great Sutton Street (GSS) data center is a 91,000 square foot Tier III facility based in between London’s financial district and the start up hotbed dubbed Silicon Roundabout. The service is aimed at companies that need a cloud infrastructure at manageable cost. Businesses can be charged on an hourly basis for the amount of power used, with charging beginning when their equipment is installed in the data center. Itemised billing lets customers monitor their power consumption accurately and only pay for what they need to use.

Pay by the kWh

Subscribers are charged by the Kilowatt hour and get 10Mbps of resilient IP bandwidth the instant their equipment is installed. There is no power reservation fee.

Included in the package are a minimum quarter of cabinet space (600mm x 1200mm), dual power feeds, in-cabinet power distribution units and cross connects. Power can be ramped up and down, by the hour, with up to 24kW available for a full cabinet.

Though the system is at an entry-level price, users will still get 100% service level agreements, promised Arnold. “There are many markets where an hourly pay plan approach delivers enormous benefits,” said Arnold, “This disruptive pricing model offers an entry into a high spec data center that many couldn’t otherwise afford and others can use for project-type flexibility.”