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Peak 10 Expands Tampa Data Center
Peak 10, a regional data center operator focusing on the Southeast, is expanding its Tampa data center more than 30 percent, citing "rapid customer growth."
"This data center expansion is not only a sign of Peak 10’s success and unprecedented growth, but also demonstrates our continued commitment and investment to the Tampa market," said David Jones, president and chief executive officer of Peak 10. "The expansion of our facilities in Tampa and our other strategic markets is driven by a clear understanding of technology trends, market conditions and the over-all IT outsourcing landscape."
April 28, 2006
IX Europe Buys Munich Data Center
European data center operator IX Europe plc has acquired its 11th data center, in Munich, and signed a substantial contract with a leading global internet company. The contract is worth in excess of £6.9 million (€10 million) over a six year period.
The Munich data center, the group’s fourth in Germany, was built in 2000 for KPNQwest at a cost in excess of $30 millio) to provide approximately 49,000 square feet of data center space. IXEurope plans to invest approximately $1.8 million to refurbish the Munich site.
Posted by Rich Miller 
April 28, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 19, 2006
Hardware Vendors Team Up on Hot Spots
Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems have teamed to form The Green Grid, an industry response to growing problems with heat loads generated by high-density blade server installations. The group's goal is to pool industry experience and expertise "to lower the overall consumption of power in datacenters around the globe."
"The Green Grid will function as an interactive body of members who will share best practices in datacenter power management," reads a description on the Green Grid web site, which includes links to case studies, white papers and research. "In the coming weeks, industry experts will be leading interactive online discussion boards, live chats, and webinars to raise awareness and foster discussion around critical aspects of datacenter management."
But what about Intel? That depends who you ask. An AMD spokesperosn told InternetNews.com that Intel "received an invitation but it hasn't responded." That's news to Intel. "We were not asked to join," Intel spokesman Scott McLaughlin told News.com. "We've been involved in a lot of alliances and have a history of developing industry ecosystems. Regardless of who's organizing it, we're always ready to participate as long as it's focused on the customer (and) not just issuing press releases."
Posted by Rich Miller April 19, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
Colo Space Shortages in North Jersey
Colocation space is growing scarce in North Jersey data centers, according to a discussion today on the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) mailing list. The thread was started by a member who was unable to find space (or at least space with sufficient power) for a 10x10 cage in the Jersey City area.
List veteran Martin Hannigan noted that subleases are probably available, but probably not cheap. "On many of the public colo houses earnings calls, they told analysts that they are trying to keep contracts to one year so they can raise prices year over year, that power pricing is fluid and many facilities are being expanded, (and) that most locations really are full or being held down by lack of cooling for existing dense rack space," Hannigan noted in a follow-up post.
Posted by Rich Miller April 19, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 18, 2006
Texas Providers Manage Rolling Blackouts
Record-setting spring heat in Texas prompted utilities around to implement rolling blackouts Monday, testing the backup systems for some of the state's many large data centers. Texas is home to several of the world's biggest dedicated server and managed hosting providers, including EV1Servers and Vericenter in Houston, The Planet in Dallas, and Rackspace in San Antonio. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the organization that runs the state's energy grid, issued an emergency call to power companies as temperatures surpassed 90 degrees, cutting off electricity to thousands of Texans with the rolling blackouts that affected homes and businesses.
"As a data center provider, we will always make sure we have the ability to sustain ourselves through any public utility issues," Michael Landesman, VP of infrastructure operations at Rackspace, told The WHIR. "We don't want to be at the mercy of anything they're doing. Which means that if there is a power problem, regardless of whether it's over utilization, they've oversubscribed or whether they just have a local issue, we will always be able to generate and sustain our own power."
Posted by Rich Miller April 18, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 17, 2006
Automation Provider BladeLogic Plans IPO
Waltham, Mass. automation software provider BladeLogic Inc. says it is planning an initial public offering after five years of strong growth, driven by underlying trends in the data center industry. Chief Executive Dev Ittycheria told Mass Hi-Tech that BladeLogic has experienced compound annual growth rate of 250 percent since being founded in 2001, with a customer list that includes Time Warner Inc. and Walmart.com.
Ittycheria says that growth is driven by trends in data center management, as enterprises are using more servers and updating them more frequently. BladeLogic's data center management software makes it easier to deploy patches across large networks of servers, and detect misconfigured machines that could present operational or security problems.
Posted by Rich Miller April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
Video Demand Drives Expansion by SAVVIS
Citing strong customer demand, SAVVIS Communications says it has expanded its content delivery network (CDN), increasing capacity on the existing servers and storage, and expanding the formats it supports for on-demand and live streaming services. The expansion is another sign of the growth of Internet video, and the infrastructure to deliver it.
SAVVIS is a major player in the U.S. data center market. It's the largest tenant for Digital Realty Trust, leasing more than 1.1 million square feet of space in nine locations. The company said the expansion was the first phase of a two-part expansion of SAVVIS' CDN caching network that will effectively double the company's network capacity.
"SAVVIS' investment in expanding our content delivery network architecture is a direct result of rapidly growing customer demand," said Vince DiMemmo, Senior Vice President, Product and Marketing for SAVVIS. "This is enabling content delivery network services to evolve from simple caching and streaming into a new model that is enabling businesses of all sizes to capitalize on the monetization of digital content that is now available on a global scale."
Posted by Rich Miller April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
Level 3 to Acquire ICG Communications
IP infrastructure titan Level 3 Communications is continuing its acquisitive ways. This morning Level 3 announced that it is acquiring ICG Communications for $163 million in cash and stock. ICG primarily provides transport, IP and voice services to more than 1,600 customers. The deal does not include ICG's investments in New Global Telecom or Mpower Holding Corporation.
"This transaction gives Level 3 the opportunity to further expand our footprint into areas where we see demand for our services, and to realize cost savings," said Kevin O'Hara, president and chief operating officer.
Back in April 2004, Level 3 paid $35 million to acquire ICG's dial-up business, which provided dial-up Internet access to America Online, EarthLink, MSN, United Online and other leading ISPs.
Posted by Rich Miller April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 05, 2006
CitiCorp Plans Huge Ohio Data Center
Ohio officials have approved an incentive package for CitiCorp North America, which is building a 300,000 square foot, $465 million data center near Columbus, according to Columbus Business First. Officials in Liberty Township say the facility, which could create 55 to 60 jobs, is slated to be constructed at the Park at Greif, a corporate office park on the west side of Route 23.
Jobs at the facility are expected to pay an average of $50,000 per year, creating new annual wages of $2.8 million in Delaware County, he said. Liberty Township is offering a 72 percent abatement on real property taxes for 15 years, as well as a 60 percent abatement on equipment for two years.
Posted by Rich Miller April 05, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 04, 2006
IDC to Open Chicago Data Center
IT infrastructure provider IDC Global Networks has opened its newest data center and colocation facility in Chicago, the company said yesterday. The facility is IDC's third center in the Chicago market, and is housed in a "purpose built telecommunications facility." IDC Global also has facilities in Kansas City, New York, and London.
IDC Global Networks is a Chicago based company providing strategic IT and network services including high availability servers, and storage area networks (SAN) and collocation facilities.
Posted by Rich Miller April 04, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
ComputerWorld Examines Power Challenges
Looking for more reading on data center power and cooling challenges? Then you'll want to check out a package of stories from ComputerWorld that discusses many of the topics we've been writing about from the AFCOM and DataCenterDynamics events. There are about five sidebars examining various aspects of the issue, including Eight Tips for a More Efficient Data Center.
Posted by Rich Miller April 04, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
MORE STORIES FROM THIS MONTH: