History of the Sofia Data Center

Today, Sofia Data Center (SDC) is one of the best data centers in Eastern Europe. But in order to earn this recognition, it took many years of constant development. Do you want to learn how it all happened?

The Beginning – History of Neterra

The history begins in 1996, long before the creation of SDC.

Back then, Neven Dilkov founded Neterra Ltd., the first private internet provider in Bulgaria.

Neven has degrees in computer science from the Chinese University of Tsinghua and another from the Wesleyan College of West Virginia, USA.

Not long after, thanks to its rapid growth, Neterra became a leader on the Bulgarian internet market.

Neven shares that the secret of Neterra’s success is a combination of loving your job, constant quality improvement, integrating innovations, and not being afraid to conquer new markets and provide new services and products.

Here are the major milestones for the company:

2000

The construction of the most technologically advanced telecommunication facility in Bulgaria – Sofia Teleport.

2003

Neterra creates a point of presence in Frankfurt, Germany, and has a 33% market share on the Bulgarian Internet market.

2004

Neterra finishes its national network for transfer of voice and data. It also connects with Romania, Turkey, and Greece.

2006

Launch of Neterra TV, an online TV platform. In the same year, British Telecom signs a deal for collocation of point of presence. The Balkan Fiber Optic Ring project begins.

2009

Sofia teleport gets an upgrade and becomes the first satellite group station in the region. In the same year, BIX.BG creates the first Internet Exchange Point in Bulgaria and chooses Neterra’s facilities (which would soon be renamed Sofia Data Center).

2011 – the official beginning for the Sofia Data Center.

The data center meets all the requirements according to ISO for quality management (ISO 9001), information security management (ISO IEC 27001) and information technology service management (ISO EIC 20000).

Later that year, SDC wins the European Data Center Awards, as well as the Special Prize at ICT Summit Eurasia Awards.

2013

The Sofia Data Center gets an upgrade, a whole new floor is built due to the rapidly growing demand for colocation services. At that time, Neterra also introduces Cloudware, a cloud service that provides IaaS (infrastructure as a service). It wins another award at the prestigious Forbes E-volution Awards for the best start-up business.

2013 – present

Today, the Sofia Data Center complies with all the industry requirements according to the TIER III. It is a modern carrier-neutral facility which provides solutions for businesses of any range.

SDC is connected to many of the major data transfer networks thanks to Neterra’s partnerships with large companies like British Telecom, Verizon Business, Level 3, Orange Business Services, Turkcell Superonline, China Telecom (Europe) and more.

SDC has a connection reaching more than 20 countries and has established points of presence in 25 international data centers.

The data center provides 2 types of services. The first, as we already mentioned, are cloud services (Cloudware.bg). Companies can use the IaaS and start a business without investing in expensive computer infrastructure. The service is easy to manage, scalable and very flexible.

The second type of service allows companies to collocate their hardware at the Sofia Data Center and benefit from the facility and its excellent connectivity.

The Sofia Data Center is a well-established facility that provides superb quality to its clients. It will continue to improve to satisfy the ever-growing needs of the business.