telecom italia sparkle: Sicilia Data Center

The Sicily Hub (Sicilia Open Data Center & Landing Hub) is operated by Telecom Italia Sparkle and located in Palermo, Sicily (Via Ugo la Malfa 99).As the Mediterranean’s strategic interconnection hub, Sicily Hub is closer geographically to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean region than any other European peering point. It links all submarine cable landing stations in Sicily to the European backbone, serving as a critical gateway for traffic between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. 

Sparkle positions this facility as “open” — meaning it supports carrier-neutral interconnection, peering, and multivendor services — while leveraging its Tier-1 Seabone IP backbone to provide transit, lower latency, and bandwidth cost benefits not available elsewhere in Europe. 

⚙️ Facility Highlights

• Power capacity: 2.0 MW of installed power (per OCOLO listing) 
• Rack density: up to 4.0 kW per rack 
• Raised floor layout, air cooling, N redundancy in power systems 
• Colocation infrastructure includes “colo space,” “SMW5 room,” Meet Me Room for interconnections
• Redundant interconnection links to all Sicilian cable landing stations (Trapani, Catania, Mazara, Palermo) 
• Support for multilayer services (L1 / L2 / L3 transport, IP, MPLS, IPX) and cloud solutions integrated with transit and private backhaul offerings 
• Uses renewable energy from certified providers, aligned with advanced international standards for energy, security, and resilience

🔐 Security & Compliance

• “Meets the most advanced international standards” in security and continuity, per Sparkle documentation 
• Redundant systems and fault-tolerant infrastructure to maintain availability during cable or network failures 
• Physical security and infrastructure designed for high service continuity (detailed measures not publicly disclosed) 

🌐 Connectivity & Carrier Access

• Carrier-neutral interconnect environment; supports cross-connects, peering, and transit from multiple vendors 
• Meet Me Room (MMR) enabling private peering, virtual peering, and public peering via neutral IX platforms 
• Remote peering integration with DE-CIX (via GlobePEER) allows direct interconnection to DE-CIX exchanges globally from Palermo, without requiring physical presence at those remote IXs.
• Direct connections to Sparkle’s Tier-1 Seabone IP backbone, enabling low-latency transit across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia 
• Rich ecosystem of peers: as of PeeringMap, networks such as Cloudflare, Amazon, Meta, Level3, Ooredoo, and others peer in DE-CIX Palermo through this facility 

💼 Who It Serves

• ISPs, carriers, and mobile network operators requiring close access to Mediterranean submarine cables and edge interconnection points
• Content providers, CDN, and cloud platforms looking to optimize latency and connectivity toward Africa, Middle East, and Southern Europe
• Enterprises and multinational organizations needing a gateway to Mediterranean, African, or Middle Eastern markets
• Network operators seeking cost-efficient transit and peering in the Mediterranean region via a high-grade open hub
• Cloud and telecom service providers wanting integrated colocation + network + transit in one location