IT services company Wipro will take over Citi’s data center in Dusseldorf, Germany, in a deal that will open up the data center for outsourcing, with Wipro managing the data center’s operation and management.
Under the deal, the financial services company will lease office and data center space from Wipro. It has currently signed on for 30 months for Wipro’s facilities and physical infrastructure management, by which time Citi is expected to have all its computing infrastructure migrated out of the data center.
The 9,000 sq m Tier III data center, which features 1,700 sq m of raised floor, opens the market for Wipro in Europe it is mostly known for its Level 5 services in the Indian, Asia Pacific and Middle East markets and more recently for its purchase of US data center outsourcing provider Infocrossing, so it could enter the market there.
Citi had owned and operated its Dusseldorf data center for more than 20 years. After the migration Wipro plans to offer a full portfolio of infrastructure management solutions for its global clients from the site, in the local suburb of Meerbusch, with a data center supporting Windows, Unix, Linux and AS/400 outsourcing services. It says its services in Europe will be able to be managed remotely through Wipro’s data center or its cloud infrastructure
Wipro is planning improvements for the data center as it migrates new clients to its site, according to Wipro general manager and country head for Germany Ralf Reich. “With the addition of the Meerbusch site, we will be able to deliver a full portfolio of mainframe, Windows and AS/400 outsourcing services from a Wipro data center in Europe, and extend our cloud computing platform to the region,” Reich said.