Irish Minister for Research & Innovation Hails Blacknight’s Success as Regional Renaissance
Carlow based company’s new data centre is viewed as disruptive to current thinking
Blacknight, Ireland’s leading domain registrar and hosting company has created a brand-new state of the art green data centre at the company headquarters in Carlow.
As he officially opened the €1 million environmentally friendly data centre yesterday (February 3rd, 2014), Minister Seán Sherlock drew comparisons between Carlow and his native Mallow, sites of Ireland’s last sugar factories:
“We need to disrupt the current thinking in this country that says that most foreign direct investment has to come into the larger urban centres. There is a perception that the skills only exist in those centres, while Blacknight shows there is a massive talent pool in this region and that in towns like Mallow and Carlow there is a reinvention or a renaissance going on, where local people are coming together and committing to create jobs, drawing from an excellent skillset. That's something that is an important takeaway for myself as Minister for Research and Innovation”
Minister Sherlock said it had been an education to him to see what Blacknight had achieved with almost no state support.
Founded in 2003, by Michele Neylon and Paul Kelly, Blacknight has grown steadily for 10 years. The opening of the data centre is the boldest addition the company has made and represents the dawn of a new era of growth and service.
Always seeking ways to implement the most cutting edge technology, Blacknight sought an environmentally friendly solution to maintain the constant chilly temperatures that a data centre requires. As a result, Blacknight had the data centre outfitted to be cooled with ambient air from outside, rendering the cooling system very environmentally friendly. Having the facility onsite promotes technical efficiency. Having that kind of peace of mind gives the team more time to create innovative, new services.
Blacknight CTO Paul Kelly explains: “We aim to continue to grow Blacknight to its fullest potential. Building an on-site data centre is cost effective and increases efficiency. This streamlining allows us to pass significant savings on to our customers. The data centre will also create jobs which allows us to fuel the local economy further.”
Blacknight partnered with a local company to build the data centre, which has helped to create local jobs. The company, which currently employs over 35, will be making further job announcements later this year.
Blacknight CEO and winner of the 2013 Ireland Net Visionary Award, Michele Neylon states: “Blacknight is a 100% Irish owned and operated business and we are very proud to house our data centre right here at our company headquarters in Carlow. This also allows us to maintain a 100% Blacknight controlled network, which ensures that we will continue to offer a PRISM free service. It has always been our goal to become fully operational from our own facility and Paul and I couldn’t be more pleased that this day has finally come.”
The expansion plan will see the company breaking into new markets, which will allow Blacknight to bring more processes in house and create additional jobs. Among the new roles to be added are software developers, e-commerce specialists, web designers, computer engineers and sales and marketing staff.
For more information about Blacknight’s data centre and their suite of services, please visit http://www.blacknight.com
About Blacknight
Blacknight (http://www.blacknight.com/) are an Irish based, ICANN accredited domain registrar and hosting company. Recipients of several awards for their revolutionary use of social media, Blacknight are one of Europe’s most cutting edge Internet companies. Blacknight constantly seek to lead the way by introducing innovative solutions for its client base and provide dedicated servers and co-location as well as a comprehensive range of Microsoft Windows and Linux based hosting services and domain name registration services to business globally. IP transit services and other solutions for more demanding business and academic customers are offered a la carte. Fibre broadband services for both business and domestic users are also available throughout most of Ireland.