KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 7): AIMS Cyberjaya Sdn Bhd (AIMS) has been appointed by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) through an open tender to lead and deliver the "Inter-Data Centre (DC) Network" initiative aimed at mitigating the high cost of bandwidth faced by Malaysian data centres.

AIMS is a carrier-neutral data centre operator and managed services provider.

In a statement on April 6, AIMS said it would be responsible for the deployment, configuration, monitoring and support of the network services and operations in an ultra-broadband backbone network interconnecting participating data centres within Cyberjaya.

It said the InterDC Network initiative was conceived from the input by local data centre players in consultation organised by the Malaysian Data Centre Alliance (MDCA) and facilitated by MDeC to bring down the cost of data centre operations.

AIMS said IDC Research recently reported that bandwidth costs borned by Malaysian data centres made up between 20% to 25% of their operations as compared to only less than 5% by data centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, UK and the USA.

MdeC director of its Digital Enablement Division Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad said that Malaysian international connectivity was ranked at a poor 28 spot (out of the top 30 nations — Cushman & Wakefield, 2013), even when the country’s overall Global Data Centre Risk ranking was at 16.

“New submarine cables are expected to be in service by Q2 FY16 to address the international component of this bandwidth cost. But at the same time the domestic aspect needs to be equally addressed, and we are looking at ways to bring this down to create a more competitive data centre ecosystem to encourage digital content and services players to make Malaysia a base in serving the region,” said Wan Murdani.

Meanwhile, AIMS Group Chief Executive Officer Chiew Kok Hin said that the AIMS Group's strong advantage was its carrier neutrality that allows the InterDC Network participating data centres the flexibility of choosing their bandwidth provider to offer their service provider clients more options to reach out to their end customers.

“AIMS is honoured to be part of this exciting project that is set to boost the data centre industry in Malaysia via this set-up of a common bandwidth infrastructure in Cyberjaya.

“By reducing bandwidth costs, we will be able to attract a higher number of investors looking to host their data in Malaysia and the ASEAN region,” he said.