Fujitsu has opened a new data center in Perth which it says will use free-cooling eight months of the year, making environmentally sustainable. 

It is, to date, the largest data center in the Western Australian city, which opens up a range of service offerings, including cloud computing, to banks and government departments that are interested in applications on demand but to date have not been able to find local capacity to do so. 

Western Australia's Bankwest has already been confirmed as the first customer of the Fujitsu Perth Data Centre First Tier III facility, and it is believed companies from across South East Asia and Western Australia will soon follow.

Fujitsu said a number of companies interested in cloud and other services had to investigate interstate or offshore options, which created problems for government and companies which require services to be close by.

The home of a number of large businesses, including Australia's mining majors, Perth is the fourth most populated city in Australia, with 1.659m people. The city has what they call a 'Mediterranean' climate, and temperatures can be erratic. They can fall 30 degrees in a few hours with the right wind change and at its hottest can range up to 43 degrees Celsius but generally temperatures will range from the late teens to the late 20s.

Fujitu's 8,000 sq m complex in Perth has more than 3,000 sq m of Tier III raised-floor space, three main data halls for cabinets and cages and smaller halls for those clients requiring private suites. It has been designed to allow for 20% savings on operational costs, and Fujitsu says it requires 30% less energy than traditional facilities and will use 80% water ÔÇô fitting given the scarcity of the resource in Australia.

Fujitsu CEO for ANZ Rod Vawdrey says savings also come from the use of a hybrid cooling system, which offers free cooling eight months of the year, decreasing the cooling load by as much as 50%. Ultrasonic humidifiers also ensure less energy is required.

"Fujitsu has set a new level for Australian data center design, construction and management," Vawdrey said.

Power seems to be at the fore of this design ÔÇô the accounting service for Fujitsu offers each client a detailed breakdown on their power and cooling consumption and how this converts into greenhouse emissions, which enables them to report under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007.

Bankwest originated in Western Australia and has more than a million customers. Bankwest CIO Andy Weir said said it is hoping that by using the data center it will lower its overall carbon footprint.

"This data center will enable Bankwest to continue to develop and refine new and innovative ways of banking that will benefit our million-plus customers across Australia," Weird swaid.

"It will also allow us to progress consolidating and migrating our critical systems into the new facility over the next 12-1`8 months."