Pulsant Edinburgh SC-3 Newbridge

Colo-X analysis

Pulsant’s Edinburgh Newbridge data centre was originally opened by local ISP Lumison in 2004 as dual office and data centre complex, with the company realising there was no alternative to market leader Scolocate. Lumison was backed by a private equity group in 2010 to embark on a buy and build strategy and the company was renamed as Pulsant later that year. In 2012 Pulsant also acquired arch-rival but estalished local market leader Scolocate.

With Pulsant also acquiring Onyx in 2016 they subsequently took on a third Edinburgh data centre now known as Pulsant Medway. As Pulsant Newbridge is 5 miles west of both Medway and South Gyle (former Scolocate) it is well placed as a diverse location to these two much larger sites.  Newbridge is not a network ecosystem like South Gyle and offers only 0.5MW of IT load.

Pulsant now operate 12 data centres across the UK, ranging in size from 200kW to nearly 4MW and providing some 20MW of capacity in total. The company is now making much of their focus on “edge” colocation.

Pulsant Edinburgh SC-3 Newbridge facility description

Newbridge is a light industrial park located just 2 miles west of Edinburgh’s airport and sits adjacent to the junction of the M8/M9 intersections, with the M9 heading north to the Forth Road bridges or north-west to Stirling at the head of the Forth and the M8 runs due west across Scotland’s central belt directly to Glasgow. Edinburgh’s city centre is 8 miles to the east.

The Pulsant Newbridge data centre was opened by Lumison, a local ISP originally called EdNet but rebranded in 2004 just prior to acquiring this 10,000 sq ft gross building.  Ironically, as Pulsant subsequently acquired Scolocate in 2012, Lumison decided to build their own Edinburgh data centre as they were seeking a better value local alternative to Scolocate. As none existed, Lumison decided to build their own (this one) and indeed they subsequently then acquired a former Tiscali Networks data centre in Croydon in 2007 which is now Pulsant’s South London data centre.  In November 2010 Lumison was acquired by Bridgepoint Development Capital with a stated “buy and build” strategy and their first such deal was the £22m March 2011 acquisition of Blue Square Data.  Later in the same year the enlarged business was rebranded as Pulsant.

The Pulsant Newbridge data centre is a light industrial building which was originally a combined office and data centre head quarters for Lumison.  Its best role today is probably as a diverse, secondary location to Pulsant’s South Gyle data centre (former Scolocate) which is much larger and very much the Pulsant Scottish flagship facility in Scotland and the former 2MW Onyx data centre, now known as Pulsant Medway on the Sighthill Industrial Estate. South Gyle is about 5 miles to the east of Newbridge, with Pulsant’s Medway data centre only 500m or so from South Gyle and thus too close to perfrom this role.

Pulsant operate 12 data centres across the UK, ranging in size from 200kW to nearly 4MW and providing some 20MW of capacity in total. The company is now making much of their focus on “edge” colocation. Besides colocation (rack and power) Pulsant offer both network and full suite of managed services.

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