Data Storage
Globenewswire | July 04, 2023
ABP and OMERS Infrastructure have today announced the signing of an agreement for the acquisition of Kenter from Alliander Corporate Ventures. Kenter is an energy infrastructure solutions business providing medium-voltage infrastructure – including transformers and switchgear – and meters to over 25,000 commercial and industrial business customers in the Netherlands and Belgium. This investment is done by APG Asset Management on behalf of ABP, the largest pension fund in the Netherlands; OMERS Infrastructure is investing on behalf of OMERS, one of the largest pension plans in Canada.
ABP and OMERS investment in Kenter will be the consortium’s second joint investment in the Dutch B2B energy solutions sector, after reaching close on their investment in Groendus in November last year. Groendus develops, builds and operates rooftop solar and storage solutions, meters and electric vehicle chargers for its commercial and industrial business customers, as well as providing access to its proprietary energy management system and energy marketplace, Groendus Energiemarktplaats. Upon close, the shareholders envision that Kenter and Groendus will partner to offer existing and new customers holistic, integrated energy solutions to support the decarbonization of their operations and help them reach their net zero goals.
Harmen van Wijnen, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at ABP, said: “ABP likes to invest in the Netherlands in order to stimulate economic growth, employment and sustainable projects. We also want to contribute to the energy transition and wholeheartedly support our nation's climate objectives. Therefore, investments in the electrification infrastructure are needed on a large scale. This investment benefits our three million participants in several ways. It not only contributes to sufficient and sustainably generated energy in the Netherlands but also generates long-term value for our pension participants.”
Jan-Willem Ruisbroek, Head of Global Infrastructure Investment Strategy at APG, said: “The energy transition is propelling the electrification trend in the Netherlands and across Europe, aligning with the ambitious climate targets set by the EU. To ensure its success, substantial investments in essential electrical infrastructure such as transformers, meters, batteries and electric vehicle chargers are imperative for our society. By investing in Kenter, building upon our previous venture with Groendus last year, we intensify our efforts. We are looking forward to working with the management teams and staff to establish a national champion in the energy transition sector the Netherlands and abroad.”
Alastair Hall, Senior Managing Director and Head of Europe, OMERS Infrastructure, said: “We’re thrilled to announce OMERS second investment to enable the energy transition in the Netherlands. We look forward to growing a B2B energy solutions platform in the region, delivering energy infrastructure for businesses looking to meet their sustainability goals.”
Erik van der Ende, CEO of Kenter, said: “I am delighted with the choice of ABP and OMERS Infrastructure. As an independent company, when it comes to the energy transition, we take care of all the needs of our existing and new customers by offering total solutions in the field of energy infrastructure. We operate in an extremely attractive growth market and this proposed sale makes it possible for Kenter to really take full advantage of our potential. We look forward to continuing to work on the energy transition together with our customers, employees, partners and new shareholders.”
APG and OMERS Infrastructure were advised by DC Advisory, Emendo Capital and Allen & Overy. The closing of the transaction is expected in Q4 2023, subject to customary regulatory approvals. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.
About OMERS Infrastructure
OMERS Infrastructure manages infrastructure investments globally on behalf of OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for municipal employees in the Province of Ontario, Canada, and third-party investors through its Strategic Partnership Program. OMERS Infrastructure manages approximately C$34 billion, including capital invested on behalf of OMERS and third parties, in over 30 investments located in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific and across sectors including energy, digital services, transportation and government-regulated services. OMERS Infrastructure has employees in Toronto, New York, the U.K., Amsterdam, Asia and Australia.
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Application Infrastructure, Data Storage
prnewswire | August 29, 2023
Aryaka®, the leader in Unified SASE solutions, today announced that it is organizing a global roadshow to coincide with the launches of its newest hyperscale Points-of-Presence (PoP) locations across the United States and Europe. The roadshow events are designed to educate CIOs, CISOs, IT professionals, and others who can benefit from Aryaka's services, giving them an opportunity to engage with Aryaka's leadership, explore its network expansion plan, and network with like-minded professionals. It is also a chance for Aryaka to connect with industry professionals on a hyperlocal level to gain a deeper understanding of the pain points they are facing and ways Aryaka can continue enhancing its offerings.
Aryaka's roadshow will begin in Denver, Colorado on Wednesday, August 23 at Happy Camper from 3-5pm. Aryaka will also be hosting an event in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, August 24 at the Mill Kitchen and Bar from 5-7pm. Additionally, there are events planned at the U.S. Embassy sites in Madrid and Lisbon in October, with events at other locations to be announced later.
"Our continued investment in our global PoPs help us deliver the essential foundation that our customers depend on to thrive in this accelerating era of distributed workforces," said Renuka Nadkarni, Chief Product Officer at Aryaka. "As a customer-first organization, Aryaka is constantly looking for new ways to connect with IT professionals to better understand where their biggest challenges are, as well as what's working best for them. Our global roadshow gives us an opportunity to connect with customers and prospects on a local level, so we can ensure we're serving everybody – from big corporations to SMEs – with customized SD-WAN and SASE offerings that are right for their businesses."
Aryaka's PoPs are strategically located to provide customers with fast, reliable connections, and deliver cloud-based network, security, and observability services. As part of Aryaka's larger mission to redefine the future of connectivity and security, these new PoPs will help accelerate users' network and security services deployments and ensure seamless operations for enterprise and SME customers.
About Aryaka
Aryaka is the leader in fully managed SD-WAN and Unified SASE solutions. Aryaka meets customers where they are to help them overcome their network and security challenges with an absurdly great customer experience. Aryaka's flexible architecture and all-in-one service are designed to modernize enterprises of any size, enabling them to defy convention and future-proof their businesses. The company's customer base is comprised of hundreds of global enterprises, including several in the Fortune 100.
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Storage Management
PRnewswire | July 03, 2023
Nasuni Corporation, a leading provider of file data services, today announced increased demand for the Nasuni File Data Platform from the global AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) industry. Nasuni is enabling its AEC customers to speed up their digital transformation by modernizing their file storage and protection infrastructure; this ultimately makes data more accessible from the cloud, while providing more effective data protection and unparalleled ransomware recovery capabilities.
Since 2021, Nasuni has grown its AEC customer base helping more than 190 customers in over 4,300 locations (27 countries worldwide) to enhance data management, adopt next-level building information modelling (BIM) tools, and facilitate complex collaborations using global file shares.
The Nasuni File Data Platform gives companies the infinite scale of the cloud, while providing superior edge performance and unrivalled data protection and security through its data file services (including Nasuni Ransomware Protection and Nasuni Access Anywhere). It achieves this by consolidating data silos, providing 24/7 business continuity, optimizing user productivity, delivering enhanced business insights, and offering the ability to choose multiple cloud providers. Hybrid cloud technology delivers critical performance benefits from the edge, enabling organizations to achieve more effective collaboration and sharing on large data sets and files at a regional or global scale.
"The AEC industry's entire business is dependent on file data and is in the midst of seismic change, with more digital solutions across entire value chains, and innovative data use cases like digital twins, design automation, BIM products, and trialling artificial intelligence (AI)-based knowledge management to remain competitive and take operations to the next level", said David Grant, President of Nasuni. "These capabilities, underpinned by cloud-based file and object storage, managed by the Nasuni File Data Platform, improve organizations' competitiveness by optimizing their processes and enabling enhanced collaboration, sharing, and data protection."
The Nasuni File Data Platform integrates and supports applications like Adobe InDesign, Autodesk Revit, Dassault CATIA CAD, Siemens Teamcenter, and Windows® File Copy. Nasuni's intelligent edge caching allows AEC firms to leverage the infinite scale of cloud object storage of their choosing while meeting the needs of hybridized work environments and maintaining high performance data accessibility even for local and remote offices.
Research in 2022 indicates that the construction industry is, alongside the education sector, the most likely target of ransomware attacks, making data protection and the ability to instantly recover from attacks without tying up internal resources imperative to maintaining competitive business operations. "The Nasuni-Azure snapshotting approach just works," said Joe Marando, CIO at global architecture firm, JERDE. "If ransomware hits, you just go back and restore your data from right before the attack, and you get your data back. I love the file recovery functionality with Nasuni."
Ramboll, a leading AEC firm founded in Denmark, with 16,500 employees in 35 countries and 300 remote offices, partners with clients to create the infrastructure behind sustainable societies. The company was relying on physical and virtual storage systems, backed by NetApp SnapMirror, at many of its global offices. The challenge of maintaining this worldwide infrastructure was significant, yet Nasuni successfully replaced their existing infrastructure with ease.
"We would have to do multiple updates on a weekly basis," recalls IT Project Manager, Morten Madsen of Ramboll. "[the current system] was not a scalable solution for a company of our size." Madsen selected the Nasuni File Data Platform to address the company's storage, backup, and management problems and today, Ramboll trusts more than 3 petabytes (PB) of global file data to be stored, protected, and managed by Nasuni.
APi Group, JERDE, Kimley-Horn, McLaren, Perkins+Will, Ramboll, SMEC (Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation), Voessing, and the Walsh Group have also selected Nasuni to modernize their legacy file infrastructure, gain more value from IT investments, and recover from cyberattacks like ransomware in minutes. To learn more about how Nasuni is enabling the AEC industry to reduce file storage costs, improve collaboration, and enhance resiliency, please visit our customer case studies.
About Nasuni
Nasuni Corporation is a leading file data services company that helps organizations create a secure, file data cloud for digital transformation, global growth, and information insight. The Nasuni File Data Platform is a cloud-native suite of services that simplifies file data infrastructure, enhances file data protection, and ensures fast file access globally at the lowest cost. By consolidating file data in easily expandable cloud object storage from Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and others, Nasuni becomes the cloud-native replacement for traditional network attached storage (NAS) and file server infrastructure, as well as complex legacy file backup, disaster recovery, remote access, and file synchronization technologies. Organizations worldwide rely on Nasuni to easily access and share file data globally from the office, home, or on the road. Sectors served by Nasuni include manufacturing, construction, creative services, technology, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, oil and gas, financial services, and public sector agencies. Nasuni's corporate headquarters is based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA delivering services in over 70 countries around the globe.
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