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Liebert Raises Prices on Cooling Products
The price of cooling large data centers just got even more expensive. Emerson Network Power has announced that it will raise prices on its Liebert product line, with an average increase of about 5.5 percent. Liebert is one of the leading makers of computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units that are essential components of data center cooling. Emerson said the increase was a reaction to higher commodity costs.
"Current trends in rising material costs are significantly impacting most of the components used in the equipment we manufacture," said Scott Dysert, president of Liebert North America. "We have been able to minimize the impact of these rising costs on our customers through aggressive negotiations with raw material suppliers and continuous efficiency improvements."
August 31, 2006
Guitar Center Moves Data Center to Phoenix
The Phoenix market is hot, and continues to attract companies relocating from other cities. One of the latest migrations is by the Guitar Center Inc., which is moving its data center from Woodhills, Calif., to central Phoenix. The company has leased 7,014 square feet in Phoenix's 2600 Tower for its data center. The Arizona Republic said the deal is valued at $1.41 million.
The Guitar Center operates an online store selling a wide variety of guitars and merchandise, and has retail stores in more than 100 locations throughout the country.
Posted by Rich Miller 
August 31, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
BitTorrent Inc. Continues to Grow at 365 Main
BitTorrent Inc. has expanded its data center presence in 365 Main's San Francisco facility. After placing a single rack at the facility in February 2005, BitTorrent's installation at 365 Main grew to three racks earlier this year, and the company has now expanded into a 600-square-foot server cage, roughly 28 racks.
BitTorrent’s peer-assisted content distribution platform enables users worldwide to publish, search and download popular digital content quickly. The company’s data center requirements have grown significantly as it has signed recent media distribution deals with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and a number of independent movie distributors, which has increased its digital library to thousands of titles.
"BitTorrent is not a company that limits itself by convention," said Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent. "With our aggressive growth plans we need a data center that can grow with us and deliver reliable power, cooling and connectivity. 365 Main provides these features within a stone’s throw away from our engineering team in San Francisco."
Posted by Rich Miller August 31, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
August 30, 2006
Peak 10 Named to Inc. 500 (Again)
Data center service provider Peak 10 has been named to Inc. magazine's annual Inc. 500 ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Peak 10 makes the list for the second consecutive year at number 240 with a three year growth rate of 529 percent.
Following its recent acquisition of Nashville-based RenTech, Peak 10 owns and operates eight data centers in six strategic markets. One of its past acquisitions, Louisville-based Xodiax, made the Inc. 500 in 2004.
"We are again honored to be recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the nation," said David H. Jones, president and chief executive officer for Peak 10. "The growth required to make a prestigious list like the Inc. 500 for the second year in a row is a clear indicator of Peak 10's market leadership and that our long-standing strategy of placing a high priority on localized customer support and service is on target. The key to our success lies in the drive, entrepreneurial spirit and dedication of our employees. It is their commitment to our business approach and vision that continuously delivers value to our customers and will fuel our growth moving forward."
Posted by Rich Miller August 30, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
PalmettoNet Expands in Charlotte
Network services provider PalmettoNet, Inc. has signed an agreement that significantly expands its space in Digital Realty Trust's 125 N. Myers Street data center facility in Charlotte, N.C. The agreement provides PalmettoNet with facilities to house both a corporate datacenter and a sales operations office. PalmettoNet also becomes the first tenant in 113 N. Myers Street's new Meet Me Room, which allows telecom carriers and network service providers to cost-effectively cross connect their networks.
"By expanding our presence in 125 N. Myers Street and in the 113 N. Myers Street Meet Me Room, PalmettoNet has secured facilities that will allow us to fully support the steadily growing demand for our fiber optic network services," said Vernon Williams, General Manager of PalmettoNet. "Digital Realty Trust's facility is the ideal environment to support our technical operations because of the advanced technical features of the building. The space allows us to have a datacenter, Meet Me Room connections and sales operations in a single, integrated location -- which is an optimum arrangement to support our customers."
Posted by Rich Miller August 30, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
I haven't had the opportunity to link to a lot of other data center blogs because ... well, until recently there haven't been many data center blogs aside from this one. That's changing, and so today we note several blogs that will be of interest to data center professionals and investors.
John Rath's Data Center Information blog has a post about Netriplex relocating a data center from Boston to Asheville, N.C. and ponders the underlying trend towards locating facilities in smaller markets.
The Data Center Design Blog is penned by staffers at PTS Data Center Solutions in North Jersey. It's been sporadicaly maintained thus far, but recently had an interesting post about "dark" data centers and design considerations.
Posted by Rich Miller August 30, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
August 29, 2006
Back from Summer Break
It's been quiet here for the last week or so due to our annual summer vacation. The news stream will resume shortly. If you have news about the data center industry, please send us an e-mail with details. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter and RSS feed to stay current on the latest data center news.
Posted by Rich Miller August 29, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
August 17, 2006
Internap Expands its Seattle Facility
Internap Network Services (IIP) will expand its data center in Seattle, the company said Wednesday. The announcement comes on the heels of additional build-outs in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto to meet additional demand in those markets. Completion of the Seattle expansion is expected in early 2007. The project will include enhancements to Internap's data center infrastructure, and a dedicated network operations center and sales team.
"This expansion allows us to accommodate the market's growth by offering the best possible environment for providing high-value Internet connectivity," said James P. DeBlasio, chief executive officer of Internap. "I believe customers value our flexible approach to colocation and find that it complements our premium IP and route optimization services."
Posted by Rich Miller August 17, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
August 15, 2006
Google Building $1 Billion Data Center in India?
Google will invest at least $1 billion in a 1 million square foot data center in a special economic zone in Andhra Pradesh, according to reports from SDA Asia and Ars Technica). While many American IT companies have located large call centers in India, the new Google center will be an Internet data center. A nugget from Ars Technica:
Sources say that Google's expansion isn't a call center, but a data center. The facility is supposed to act as a concentrator for Google access, including GMail, search results, cached data, and so forth, that will make access to the services faster and more reliable for surfers in south Asia.The expansion comes as technology trade pubs are starting to focus more closely on Google's infrastructure spending following updated capital spending projections in the company's second quarter earnings. We covered this back on July 21 (see Google's Data Center Spending to Accelerate), but no less than Information Week is writing that Google's data center spending "could crimp its finances."
Posted by Rich Miller August 15, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
Data Center Outages Bring Headaches, Headlines
July saw a steady stream of data center outages due to equipment failures, several of which attracted media attention. The latest incident to make headlines was an outage July 30 at Seattle's Fisher Plaza, which is described by CRM Buyer today in a story titled Unsinkable Data Center Crashes in Seattle. The article digs into the cause of the downtime, which is in dispute, as Fisher Plaza cited an equipment problem after a Seattle City Light outage, but the power company says it was never offline.
The recent string of incidents provide a painful reminder that Murphy's Law has jurisdiction over even the most wired data centers. An AFCOM member survey from April predicted that within the next five years power failures and shortages will halt data center operations (at least briefly) at more than 90% of all companies.
The uptime industry is in the business of trying to anticipate everything that can go wrong, and engineering solutions for even the most improbable scenarios. Although SLAs promising 100% uptime are common nowadays, stuff happens. "Failure is inevitable. Fail small," said Richard Sawyer, Director of Data Center Technology for American Power Conversion, in discussing the AFCOM results. Outages are painful, but offer lessons as well. In that spirit, here's a recap of some of the recent incidents:
Posted by Rich Miller August 15, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
August 14, 2006
Equinix Takes Charge on Options Issue
Equinix will take a $445,000 non-cash charge against its earnings to account for inconsistencies in in the dating of option grants, but said there had been no fraud involved in the handling of the options. "The Audit Committee concluded that the Company did not engage in intentional or fraudulent misconduct in the granting of stock options," Equinix said in a statement accompanying its second quarter earnings, which had been delayed while the accounting issue was resolved. The audit found that the accounting dates of some past stock option grants differed from their actual grant dates.
"We continue to experience strong momentum across all areas of our business," said Peter Van Camp, chairman and CEO, Equinix. "We are pleased the Audit Committee has completed the investigation and found no intentional misconduct in our prior stock option grant practices. We intend to continue to cooperate with the ongoing inquiries from the SEC and DOJ."
Posted by Rich Miller August 14, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
MORE STORIES FROM THIS MONTH:
- Liebert Raises Prices on Cooling Products
- Guitar Center Moves Data Center to Phoenix
- BitTorrent Inc. Continues to Grow at 365 Main
- Peak 10 Named to Inc. 500 (Again)
- PalmettoNet Expands in Charlotte
- Data Center Blog Roundup
- Back from Summer Break
- Internap Expands its Seattle Facility
- Google Building $1 Billion Data Center in India?
- Data Center Outages Bring Headaches, Headlines
- Equinix Takes Charge on Options Issue
- Miami NAP Provides Colo for Local Governments
- Verizon Facility Uses Fuel Cells for Power
- Huge Power Draws for Google, Yahoo, Sabey
- Sabey Plans $100M Facility in Wenatchee, Wa.
- SAVVIS Partners In Bermuda, Caymans
- Insurer Opens 175,000 SF Colorado Facilitry