To be the best data centre partner possible, Datacom is focused on continuous improvement, which led it to work with Uptime. Datacom also wanted a certification that reflected how its data centres perform in the real world under real operational conditions. Uptime’s M&O Stamp of Approval does exactly that: it assesses the processes, people and practices that keep a site resilient over the long-term. Matt Neil, Director of Data Centres at Datacom, discusses how Uptime has helped Datacom maintain its high standards.
Datacom is one of Australasia’s largest homegrown tech companies, bringing together technology and expertise to deliver sustainable solutions for some of New Zealand and Australia’s most successful businesses and public sector organisations. Datacom’s specialist teams work across cybersecurity, cloud, digital platforms and applications and operate mission-critical infrastructure including best-in-class data centre facilities.
Datacom has been providing bespoke and flexible data centre services to customers for the last 30 years, earning a reputation as a reliable data centre partner that delivers secure and flexible data centre solutions.
In New Zealand, Datacom’s four data centres – Orbit, Kapua, Abel and Gloucester – are designed, built, owned and operated by Datacom. These facilities are powered by Mercury and have achieved independent Toitū carbon reduction certification, which recognises the use of 100% renewable energy sources.
Datacom has over 6,650 employees based across 26 different regional sites. Its ability to provide local support and expertise and work closely with its customers is what sets it apart from other companies.
One of the central challenges for data centres is that they are ‘always on’ – customers rely on this critical infrastructure; service demands can come in at any time and from anywhere. Datacom provides full-service data centre solutions, from receipt of deliveries on behalf of customers to recycling the packaging, installing racks and IT equipment in racks, changing media and a raft of other services.
Datacom focuses on maintaining the high standards that underpin its 24/7 operational model and ensuring its customers understand the ongoing commitment to excellence that drives the team. To help achieve this, Datacom decided to work with Uptime to benchmark itself against others in the industry, support its commitment to continuous improvement and gain trusted third-party verification for its data centres.
Design and build certifications are largely ‘point in time’ assessments, whereas Datacom wanted a certification that demonstrated to customers how well it runs its data centres, day after day, year after year. The M&O Stamp of Approval demonstrates the level of quality that it provides and helps prove that it is different from the competition.
Datacom values the M&O Stamp of Approval as an objective evaluation of its data centre capability and proof that its data centres are run to an extremely high standard.
As part of Datacom’s continuous improvement programme, the team proactively reviews its processes and procedures. They take the lessons learned through BAU activities and projects and introduce operational improvements accordingly. Datacom uses the outcomes and recommendations provided by the M&O Stamp of Approval evaluation process as an ongoing quality assurance check. This helps to guide any improvements needed to ensure that its data centres continue to deliver best-in-class operational excellence for its customers.
Continuous improvement and the pursuit of opportunities to review and enhance processes have always been integral to Datacom’s data centre operations. However, the M&O Stamp of Approval has played a significant role in further ingraining this approach within the team.
Given the 24/7 nature of data centres, Datacom recognises the critical importance of prioritising staff wellbeing and taking preventative measures to avoid fatigue. According to Uptime Intelligence’s ‘outage analysis’, 40% of organisations have experienced a significant outage caused by human error within the past three years. In fact, poorly defined or executed operational practices are many times more likely to impact a data centre’s performance than any other cause.
One of the key challenges over the last few years for data centre operators is attracting and retaining staff. By reviewing and understanding the Uptime’s M&O Stamp of Approval ‘Staffing and Organisation Assessment Category,’ Datacom set about delivering a new structure that focussed on staff development and staff welfare. By focusing on staff welfare, career pathways and robust training, Datacom has in many areas entirely removed the requirement for staff to cover overtime, leading to less hours spent at work thereby reducing staff fatigue. The clear career pathways, supported by robust training, including online courses and hands-on practical experience has seen a large number of its team upskill quickly and move into more senior roles.
As Datacom looks to the future, continuous improvement will remain a central focus, along with exceeding customer expectations and enhancing the sustainability of all its data centres.
Matt Neil, Director of Data Centres at Datacom, discusses how the partnership has made a difference to Datacom.
What differentiates Datacom from other data centre providers in New Zealand and Australia?
Datacom’s biggest point of difference is that we are far more than a ‘racks and real estate’ provider. We’re a full‑service technology partner with deep expertise across data centres, cloud, managed services, cybersecurity and software. That breadth means we can advise customers on the right mix of on‑premises, private cloud, public cloud, colocation and hybrid solutions rather than pushing a single model. This allows us to help customers place the right workload in the right location, at the right cost and with the right resilience.
We’re also one of Australasia’s largest locally-owned technology companies, with more than 30 years’ experience designing, building, owning and operating data centres in New Zealand and strong partnerships in Australia. Our four New Zealand facilities – Orbit (Auckland), Kapua (Hamilton), Abel (Wellington) and Gloucester (Christchurch) – are all locally owned and operated and are powered by 100% certified renewable electricity.
From an assurance perspective, our decade‑long relationship with Uptime Institute and our Management & Operations (M&O) Stamp of Approval across our New Zealand data centres provide independent proof of operational excellence – something no other New Zealand provider has at the same scale.
What makes the ‘always on’ data centre model particularly challenging to operate?
‘Always on’ means there is never a quiet period. Customers rely on our infrastructure 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and service requests can come from anywhere at any time. That creates several operational challenges:
- Zero tolerance for downtime: Even minor missteps can have significant business and reputational impacts for our customers.
- Complex, high‑risk change windows: Any maintenance or configuration change must be planned, peer‑reviewed and executed with extreme care to avoid unplanned disruption.
- Continuous resourcing demands: We have trained, vetted staff on site around the clock to respond to incidents, manage access and support customer needs.
- Relentless operational discipline: The processes that protect uptime – from routine checks to incident management – must be followed every time, without exception.
Our data centres are the heartbeat of our customers’ businesses. Having this at the forefront of our mind drives a strong focus on continuous improvement, measurement and independent validation of how we run our sites day after day, year after year.
Why did Datacom choose to pursue Uptime’s M&O Stamp of Approval instead of relying solely on design and build certifications?
Design and build certifications are valuable, but they are largely point‑in‑time assessments. They tell you that a facility was designed and constructed to a certain specification – not how it is operated three, five or 10 years later.
We wanted a certification that reflected how our data centres perform in the real world under real operational conditions. Uptime’s M&O Stamp of Approval does exactly that: it assesses the processes, people and practices that keep a site resilient over the long term. That aligns closely with our philosophy of continuous improvement and is far more meaningful for customers who care about actual uptime, not just design intent.
By pursuing the M&O Stamp of Approval, we’re deliberately holding ourselves to a higher standard – not just ‘was it built well?’ but ‘is it managed and operated to best practice every day?’
How does the M&O Stamp of Approval help differentiate Datacom from its competitors?
The M&O Stamp of Approval clearly demonstrates that our focus goes beyond physical infrastructure to the quality of management and operations. It provides an independent, globally recognised benchmark that many of our competitors in New Zealand do not have.
For customers, it simplifies due diligence. Instead of taking our word for it, they see a rigorous external evaluation of our staffing, procedures, maintenance practices, risk management and incident response. That’s especially compelling for organisations in highly regulated sectors, such as government, financial services and healthcare, where operational risk must be demonstrably well-controlled.
It also signals culture. The M&O Stamp of Approval shows we welcome scrutiny, act on recommendations and treat operational excellence as an ongoing discipline, not a one‑off project.
What value does third‑party verification bring to Datacom’s customers?
Third‑party verification gives customers confidence that our claims about reliability, security and operational maturity have been independently tested. Many of our customers run their own audit and assurance programmes. Being able to provide an external report from Uptime Institute simplifies those processes and reduces their internal burden.
The benefits include:
- Objective assurance: Customers are not relying solely on vendor self‑assessment
- Benchmarking: Uptime Institute’s framework allows customers to compare our operations with global best practice
- Transparency: Detailed findings and recommendations give customers visibility into how we manage risk and where we are investing to improve
- Risk reduction: For boards, regulators and auditors, independent validation helps demonstrate that their critical infrastructure is hosted with a provider that takes resilience and governance seriously
Third‑party verification turns our operational rigour into something customers can comfortably reference in their own risk and compliance frameworks.
What changes were made to Datacom’s organisational structure based on Uptime’s ‘Staffing and Organisation Assessment Category’?
The Staffing and Organisation Assessment Category prompted us to take a fresh, structured look at how we support our people and how we resource our 24/7 environment. As a result, we made several targeted changes, including:
- Rebalancing shifts and resourcing: We redesigned shift patterns and resourcing so that our teams have better coverage without routinely relying on overtime, significantly reducing fatigue risk.
- Clearer career pathways: We clarified roles and progression paths within the data centre team, linking them to defined competencies and training requirements so staff can see how they can advance.
- Enhanced training and development: We strengthened our training programmes with a mix of formal courses and hands‑on development, enabling many team members to upskill quickly and move into more senior roles.
- Greater focus on staff welfare: We put more emphasis on wellbeing initiatives to ensure our people are supported in what can be a high‑pressure, shift‑based environment.
These changes have made our organisation more resilient, reduced staff turnover and created a stronger culture of ownership and professionalism across our data centre operations.
According to Uptime Intelligence, human error is a leading cause of outages. How does Datacom mitigate this risk?
We recognise that technology alone doesn’t prevent outages – people and process are just as critical. Our approach to minimising human error includes:
- Standardised, documented procedures: All critical activities – from switching operations to change management – follow well‑defined, documented processes that have been peer‑reviewed and tested.
- Rigorous change control: Changes to critical systems go through formal risk assessment, approvals and, where possible, testing in non‑production environments before being implemented.
- Training and competency management: Staff are trained and assessed against specific competencies for the systems they operate. We use a combination of classroom, online and practical training to ensure knowledge is embedded.
- Team‑based operations: High‑risk activities are not performed by a single individual in isolation. Peer checks and dual‑control practices reduce the chance of a single‑person mistake causing an outage.
- Incident review and continuous improvement: Any incident, near miss or anomaly is reviewed to identify root causes and procedures are updated or training is facilitated accordingly. Lessons learned are shared across all sites.
Our ongoing engagement with Uptime Institute provides an external lens on how effectively we manage these risks, and we use its feedback to refine our practices further.
What future sustainability initiatives might be introduced across Datacom’s data centres?
Sustainability is central to Datacom’s strategy, and we see our data centres as a major lever to progress toward our net‑zero ambitions. Our New Zealand facilities already operate on 100% renewable energy and are Toitū Carbon Reduce certified.
Looking ahead, we’re exploring several initiatives, including:
- Further efficiency gains: Continuing to drive down power usage effectiveness (PUE) through exploring advanced cooling technologies (such as indirect evaporative systems and liquid cooling), improved airflow management and AI‑driven monitoring to optimise set points in real-time.
- Heat reuse: Assessing options for productive reuse of waste heat from data centres, for example, to support nearby facilities such as greenhouses or other industrial processes.
- Deeper transparency for customers: Providing more granular, real‑time reporting on energy use, PUE and renewable energy matching, so customers can incorporate accurate data centre emissions into their own ESG reporting.
- Long‑term renewable and price certainty: Building on our existing long‑term renewable energy agreements to give customers stable, low‑carbon power pricing that insulates them from energy-market volatility.
As AI and high‑density workloads grow, we see sustainable design and operation as both an environmental responsibility and a business advantage, lowering operating costs for our customers while reducing our collective carbon footprint.
