Cisco Builds Green Data Center in Germany

Cisco is expanding its Webex data centers and, with the German Frankfurt site, is focusing on security and data protection in accordance with EU law. The new data center is to be powered only by renewable energy and will go into operation before the end of 2021.

Will chatting at the coffee machine soon be obsolete? Cloud-based collaboration platforms like Webex haven't just been booming since Corona, but since the start of the pandemic, the use of digital collaboration tools has increased by 74% percent. Where international teams were once the main users, home offices and the expansion of digital services for citizens and businesses are now driving the trend.

For Wendy Mars, Cisco President EMEAR, there is no doubt: »The future of work will be hybrid. Collaboration technologies play a key role in digital working, and make it independent of location, language or technology skills. The pace of change is breathtaking.«

Frankfurt Data Hub Focuses on Security

The speed of digital development and the resulting increase in data volumes must also be taken into account by Cisco. The company will be enlarging and expanding its data centers before the end of 2021, and one of the locations is Germany's Frankfurt am Main. The financial and IT city is already one of the most important data hubs in Europe. With its expansion, Cisco primarily wants to offer more flexibility, but increased compliance requirements and storage of data within the European Union are also important reasons.

Uwe Peter, Head of Cisco Germany, says: »The Frankfurt site offers excellent technical and economic conditions for operating a data center with the highest energy efficiency and data security. Security and data protection in Germany will thus be further strengthened.«

Extremely Secure Data Center for Webex

Cisco is using the latest technologies in the new data center in Frankfurt, it will be fully automated. Among other things, the Cisco ASR routing platform provides high throughput for connectivity into the data center, benefiting high-bandwidth applications such as audio and video streaming or video conferencing.

Within the data center, all components are securely networked and built in such a way that further capacity expansion is also very easy. Within the architecture, the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) combines industry-standard x86 architecture servers with networking and storage. UCS provides all the server capacity needed, automatically scaling according to current demand. In addition, the Cisco ThousandEyes Internet and cloud intelligence platform provides analytics for digital applications and services. The entire architecture is protected throughout with Cisco Firepower, making the new data center very secure and resistant to potential attacks.

The new Webex data hub is powered by 100 percent renewable energy. This includes power supplies, internal components as well as cooling systems.