MICROSOFT HAS been granted planning permission by South Dublin County Council for a 11,090sq m data centre at Grange Castle Business Park in Clondalkin.
The new development will be beside a 28,100sq m facility, which the software company developed at a cost of $500 million and which formally opened in 2009.
Microsoft, which is heavily investing in data centres around the world to support an internet-based business model, declined to make any comment on the extension of the Grange Castle facility.
Documents posted on the South Dublin County Council website show permission has been granted for a “single-storey data centre” adjoining the existing facility.
Data centres are highly sophisticated facilities which house dense banks of servers connected to the internet through multiple connections. They require several redundant telecoms and power connections to ensure they can continue operating on a 24-hour basis seven days a week.
The planning permission was granted to Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd (MIOL) which sells, distributes and markets software around the world from Dublin on behalf of the maker of the ubiquitous Windows software.
In the year to the end of June 2010, MIOL increased pretax profits by 76.5 per cent to €1.43 billion, having generated revenues of €11.35 billion.
The application was lodged on behalf of Microsoft by PM Group, the Irish engineering, architecture and project management company which has built up a speciality in these type of large high-tech projects.
The existing Grange Castle data centre is Microsoft’s European hub for all of its cloud-computing and online services.
