Volta launches first UK ‘pay by the hour’ data centre
Fri 6 Feb 2015

Volta Data Centre, the London-based developer and operator, has launched a new pay-per-use model which it hopes will encourage early cloud and colocation adopters.
The ‘Power by the Hour’ scheme is the first initiative offered by a UK data centre to provide an affordable and non-committal utility-based package for companies adopting cloud or outsourcing to a colocation site for the first time.
Volta’s Tier III Great Sutton Street (GSS) facility is located close to east London’s tech cluster, Silicon Roundabout. The new power consumption model is targeted at businesses that are looking for cost-effective cloud infrastructure solutions, with customers billed by the Kilowatt hour and not charged a power reservation fee. Users also benefit from 10Mbps of resilient I.P. bandwidth connectivity as soon as they install their equipment in the data centre.
The service uses an itemised charging structure to enable companies to closely monitor their power consumption and only pay for what they have used.
The offering also includes a minimum quarter cabinet (600mm x1200mm), dual power feeds, and in-cabinet PDUs. Power can be scaled up or down on an hourly basis, with up to 24kW available for a full cabinet.
According to Volta the hourly plan approach has already proven to deliver great benefits in foreign markets, improving availability, flexibility and scalability.
“The phenomenal growth in cloud based service delivery and managed services is changing essential data centre requirements,” said Jon Arnold, Volta managing director. “While every cloud needs a home it’s not just about having great resilience of connectivity, power and security. We want to shake up the data centre market to offer a better value option for smaller companies that may not want to be tied in forever.”
“Utility based pricing is becoming a key requirement for CIOs – extending this to the data centre is a logical extension. We expect to generate significant interest with this new pricing model that delivers the next level of data centre flexibility,” he added.