IFT - Infratil

[Snow Leopard]

20240623_110347.jpg

Many years ago I was in a Data Centre doing regular maintenance on a client's disaster recovery database.
At the near precise moment I hit the enter key to run a command there was a loud bang, all the room lights went out, the aircons stopped and there was only the gentle hum of the computers themselves.

For what seemed like a lifetime, but was actually 30 seconds, I stood there in the dark.

Then the generators kicked in, some lights came on, the cooling started to run again and all was well.

But I seriously thought I had caused it all for a few seconds.


Disc: Hold IFT & in on the capital raise
Disc: Caffe Latte made with Premium Sarawak Liberica beans.

[Snoopy]

Hi Snoopy, I appreciate your detailed analysis as always. Just one thought, I am under the understanding that the clients leasing (often only parts of) a data centre own the computers. What a data centre leases out is a building with reliable electricity and cooling for the clients to put there equipment in.

Hi Forest,

Appreciate your thoughts. You are right. But I think you are only covering one of the data centre business models out there. There are 'Public Data Centres' and 'Private Data Centres'. The way I remember 'which is which' is the philosophy of each named class of data centre follows the philosophy of the same names as they apply to the English school system.

Thus a 'Public Data Centre' is like a 'pay school' (private school in NZ) where 'you pay money' and accept whatever data access package the operator has available for you.
OTOH a 'Private Data Centre' is exactly what you describe. You rent space in a suitably powered and cooled 'outer shell', into which you install your own computer equipment.

The other option is 'hybrid storage' which is a mixture of private and public. That might suit a company with broad requirement for a data heavy back office workload, but one that still wishes to keep critical secure information on company owned servers.

My broad reading on the topic suggests that while 'Private Cloud' used to be the norm, the pendulum has now swung so that in terms of data centre capability, 'Public Cloud' now dominates. Certainly the international hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure require full control of their data centres and do not entertain 'Private Cloud'.
It is amongst this trend that the likes of Spark are looking to position themselves as hybrid cloud operators - not directly competing with the likes of AWS and Azure, so that Spark customers can choose, or not, to use their own computer equipment and in what proportion.

As a 'new kid on the block', in NZ at least, and a company that mentions 'scale' at every opportunity I had just assumed that CDC was a 'pure 'public cloud' operator. But my assumption could be wrong, especially as CDC has a much longer establishment timeline in their home market in Australia. If CDC are indeed more of a 'private cloud' operator, then Forest, you make a good point. But are they? Do any readers know?

SNOOPY

[ynot]

20240623_110347.jpg

Many years ago I was in a Data Centre doing regular maintenance on a client's disaster recovery database.
At the near precise moment I hit the enter key to run a command there was a loud bang, all the room lights went out, the aircons stopped and there was only the gentle hum of the computers themselves.

For what seemed like a lifetime, but was actually 30 seconds, I stood there in the dark.

Then the generators kicked in, some lights came on, the cooling started to run again and all was well.

But I seriously thought I had caused it all for a few seconds.


Disc: Hold IFT & in on the capital raise
Disc: Caffe Latte made with Premium Sarawak Liberica beans.

That coffee sounds interesting. Would you know if the green bean is available here.

[forest]

Hi Forest,

Appreciate your thoughts. You are right. But I think you are only covering one of the data centre business models out there. There are 'Public Data Centres' and 'Private Data Centres'. The way I remember 'which is which' is the philosophy of each named class of data centre follows the philosophy of the same names as they apply to the English school system.

Thus a 'Public Data Centre' is like a 'pay school' (private school in NZ) where 'you pay money' and accept whatever data access package the operator has available for you.
OTOH a 'Private Data Centre' is exactly what you describe. You rent space in a suitably powered and cooled 'outer shell', into which you install your own computer equipment.

The other option is 'hybrid storage' which is a mixture of private and public. That might suit a company with broad requirement for a data heavy back office workload, but one that still wishes to keep critical secure information on company owned servers.

My broad reading on the topic suggests that while 'Private Cloud' used to be the norm, the pendulum has now swung so that in terms of data centre capability, 'Public Cloud' now dominates. Certainly the international hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure require full control of their data centres and do not entertain 'Private Cloud'.
It is amongst this trend that the likes of Spark are looking to position themselves as hybrid cloud operators - not directly competing with the likes of AWS and Azure, so that Spark customers can choose, or not, to use their own computer equipment and in what proportion.

As a 'new kid on the block', in NZ at least, and a company that mentions 'scale' at every opportunity I had just assumed that CDC was a 'pure 'public cloud' operator. But my assumption could be wrong, especially as CDC has a much longer establishment timeline in their home market in Australia. If CDC are indeed more of a 'private cloud' operator, then Forest, you make a good point. But are they? Do any readers know?

SNOOPY

Hi Snoopy, I got my info from Matthew Ross, deputy CFO of infratil. I did not know there were other data centre business model so I assume CDC is indeed a 'private cloud' model.

[Ggcc]

Hi Forest,

Appreciate your thoughts. You are right. But I think you are only covering one of the data centre business models out there. There are 'Public Data Centres' and 'Private Data Centres'. The way I remember 'which is which' is the philosophy of each named class of data centre follows the philosophy of the same names as they apply to the English school system.

Thus a 'Public Data Centre' is like a 'pay school' (private school in NZ) where 'you pay money' and accept whatever data access package the operator has available for you.
OTOH a 'Private Data Centre' is exactly what you describe. You rent space in a suitably powered and cooled 'outer shell', into which you install your own computer equipment.

The other option is 'hybrid storage' which is a mixture of private and public. That might suit a company with broad requirement for a data heavy back office workload, but one that still wishes to keep critical secure information on company owned servers.

My broad reading on the topic suggests that while 'Private Cloud' used to be the norm, the pendulum has now swung so that in terms of data centre capability, 'Public Cloud' now dominates. Certainly the international hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure require full control of their data centres and do not entertain 'Private Cloud'.
It is amongst this trend that the likes of Spark are looking to position themselves as hybrid cloud operators - not directly competing with the likes of AWS and Azure, so that Spark customers can choose, or not, to use their own computer equipment and in what proportion.

As a 'new kid on the block', in NZ at least, and a company that mentions 'scale' at every opportunity I had just assumed that CDC was a 'pure 'public cloud' operator. But my assumption could be wrong, especially as CDC has a much longer establishment timeline in their home market in Australia. If CDC are indeed more of a 'private cloud' operator, then Forest, you make a good point. But are they? Do any readers know?

SNOOPY

Yes they only own the building and don’t own the hardware, other than the wires that hardware plug into in the building. They also have mentioned 30 year contracts, which sounds great.

[Snoopy]

Hi Snoopy, I got my info from Matthew Ross, deputy CFO of infratil. I did not know there were other data centre business model so I assume CDC is indeed a 'private cloud' model.

I had another look at the CDC website, forest.

https://cdc.com/services/data-centre-services/

Under the architecture and planning link it says this:
"Our expert team collaborates with you throughout the entire lifecycle, from the strategic planning of your data centre environment to the detailed solution architecture that encompasses the specific power density, cooling and interconnection of your ICT footprint."

The above sentence seems to indicate specific power density, cooling and interconnection are the services offered. Then they say of "your" rather than "our" ICT footprint integrates with that.
Maybe I am reading too much into the wording. As 'Your' ICT requirements could still reside on 'our' equipment. But what I have quoted does align with what Matthew Ross said to you, forest.

Yet it is hard to be sure of the truth when so many buzzwords are involved.

Sovereign.
"Protecting your long-term investment – through sovereign control of your data centre."

What does the above mean? Is King Charles personally in charge of looking after your data?


Secure.
"Protecting your critical assets – all CDC facilities are certified to the highest levels of security."

Again the above reads like nothing more than a slick marketing slogan, which means nothing under closer scrutiny. If they let customers install their own hardware and software, how do they know it is all done to the highest security level? Or are they speaking of something quite different to software security? Like a high fence and a full time security guard (which CDC do offer)?


Customisable.
"Configure your data centre your way – CDC provides flexible, modular and scalable solutions to future-proof your business."

A lesson in how to say nothing in as many words as possible? At first glance the above quote fits the narrative of a third party business bringing in their own hardware and software. But the heading say 'customisable'. This indicates to me there is a standard option which a user can choose or not to customise. And it implies to me the non-customised 'standard' option is supplied by CDC.

I don't think I have seen a business website less informative than 'cdc.com'. Why do they not come out and say straight what services they provide? Instead of meaningless marketing drivel that can be read any way the tide washes it?

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

Yes they only own the building and don’t own the hardware l, other than the wires that hardware plug into in the building. They also have mentioned 30 year contracts, which sounds great.

Well I am surprised to hear this. I am not denying it is true, but do you have a source for this information? If true, it does explain why Telstra has no policy on dealing with CDC. Because if customer companies supply their own equipment, and CDC simply supplies the cabinets, that means there is no CDC to deal with from a Telstra perspective. Telstra must deal with the CDC customers individually.

If CDC is wholly a 'private data centre' model, that is very different to what AWS and Microsoft Azure are offering. In the past, running a 'Private Data Centre' was the only game in town. But has the data centre market evolved now?

Ggcc's explanation would also explain companies signing up for a 30 year lease. Who in their right mind would sign a deal with a technology company, locking them into incumbent technology for 30 years? Perhaps a company that doesn't sign away their future technology path? A company that still owns all of their own hardware and software assets?

SNOOPY

[Baa_Baa]

Snoopy has much to learn about the various types of data centres, what they provide, how they do it, what customers they target and why, and how their business models work. It is not at all clear why he is even remotely interested, except perhaps that IFT is a very very successful company.

[Snoopy]

I am not an Infratil shareholder. But I am now forced to take an interest, due to the other telecommunications assets that I do hold (principally Spark and Telstra).

Snoopy has much to learn about the various types of data centres, what they provide, how they do it, what customers they target and why, and how their business models work. It is not at all clear why he is even remotely interested, except perhaps that IFT is a very very successful company.

I have already told you why I am interested in CDC, when I started the series of posts that have gone places over the weekend (see above). From an NZ perspective, I am particularly interested in how CDC competes with Spark data centres. From what has come out so far, it seems that Spark see their USP as offering a 'hybrid' data centre, whereas CDC are fully focussed on 'private' data centres. So it isn't quite the 'clash of the titans' I thought it was. It looks like Spark and CDC have their own preferred data centre niches.

And for your information, I have never claimed to have a detailed knowledge of the data centre business models. I am here on this thread to learn about them from others who know more than me - which is the principal purpose of joining a forum like this in the first place, right?

SNOOPY

[kiora]

As a IFT shareholder from day dot I find the compounding growth model the most interesting and rewarding.
Very few companies on the NZX seem to manage to achieve it the way IFT has.
Some investors are more interested in dividends per se. even though dividends can come & go.

Return on invested capital is pertinant, for renewable Energy I suspect Longroad Rnergy has significantly higher returns than any other international firms competing in the same space eg Orsted
In parallel with Longroad Energy derisking their build pipeline through long term contracts.

Key : Derisk,leverage,higher returns