The renovation includes the construction of six Turn-Key Datacenter PODs, each featuring approximately 6,000 square feet of raised floor space and 1 megawatt of IT load. The upgrades also include a new HVAC systems and electrical infrastructure. 200 Quannapowitt Parkway is one of two buildings at the former Comverse Technology campus.

“Boston is a very strong datacenter market, especially along the Route 128 Corridor, which is the spine of New England’s technology industry,” said Dave Caron, Senior Vice President, Portfolio Management at Digital Realty Trust. “The improvements at 200 Quannapowitt will make it one of the most desirable data center facilities in the region. As we approach the completion of the first phase of the project, we are very pleased to be able to provide the Boston enterprise customer with a high quality data center solution to support their IT requirements.”

Digital Realty Trust is the world’s largest owner of data center properties, operating 96 properties spanning 16.9 million square feet in 28 markets throughout Europe, North America and Singapore.

Caisson said Tuesday that co-founder Karl Robohm will serve as the company’s Chief Operating Officer and oversee the data center’s development. Robohm is a25-year industry veteran who previously worked for Internap Network Services and Transitional Data Services.

“I’ve seen first hand the need for Tier III space in the Boston area,” said Robohm. “Because of the lack of usable Tier III inventory in the region, IT leaders I’ve worked with over the last few years are frustrated that they’ve had to settle for less or leave the area to meet their critical criteria. I’m excited to bring this brand new, highly efficient data center online in Natick.”

Caisson CEO David Steigerwald said the company expects to appeal to some of the key industries in the regional economy. “Boston’s financial services, technology and bio/pharmaceutical organizations are managing escalating IT infrastructure needs – higher power density computing environments, virtualization and private clouds,” said Steigerwald. “Karl has designed this facility and our processes to handle this new wave of infrastructure demands.”

2N+1 was founded by industry veterans with experience at HarvardNet and Boston Datacenters. In 2008 the company began retrofitting a 45,000 square foot data center in a fiber-rich neighborhood in Somerville, across the street from a local utility NSTAR.

In 2008 the company said its colocation facility would provide 12 megawatts of power and support densities of 250 watts per square foot. The current specs for the facility cite power availability of 24 megawatts and up to 350 watts per square foot of power. The Boston Business Journal reports that 2N+1′s largest unsecured creditor is Vigil Electric, a local electrical contractor.

Chapter 11 allows a company to continue operating while it restructures its debts. In April 2N+1 announced that it is “now up and running with a growing cadre of clients.”

Bankruptcy filings for data center and telcom providers have been rare in recent years, but were common in the dot-bomb meltdown of 2001-2003, when providers such as Exodus, MFN/AboveNet, WorldCom and Relera filed for Chapter 11, largely from the financial stress of heavy borrowing to build data centers and networks. That overbuilding resulted in a huge imbalance between supply and demand.

Is there any chance of similar supply-demand imbalance today? We’ll examine that issue this week on DCK.

“We chose Markley Group’s One Summer Street facility for its high quality, its high capacity bandwidth, its 100% reliability in its 11-year operating history, and its access to more than 40 domestic and international carriers,” said Paolo Gambini, Chief Marketing Officer of Tinet. “Our new presence in Boston is indicative of the positive growth and profitability Tinet has experienced within the past years, as well as our continued commitment to expand our network in North America and other strategic locations around the world.”

Tinet said it will also roll out a third Network Operating Center (NOC) this year in the U.S., a move that reflects the company’s growing number of wholesale clients and rising network needs in the region.

“Our mission is to bring together exceptional companies like Tinet from the data center, IT and telecom industries, and to offer them the opportunity to conduct business together,” said Jeffrey Markley, CEO of the Markley Group. “Known for their IP and Ethernet backbone that extends across North America, Tinet contributes significant proficiency in network services and an unwavering commitment to best serve its North American and global customers.”

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group, provides global IP Transit and Ethernet connectivity to carriers and service providers worldwide, along with proactive management of SLAs and protection from dDoS attacks.

“This data center will meet the growing data-oriented demands of large businesses around the country,” said Charles Field, vice president and general manager for the New England region. “As common business applications are moving towards the cloud, we’ll be there to serve them with the industry-leading service our customers have come to expect.”

The two-story data center will feature more than 40,000 square feet of raised floor space and be supported by five one-megawatt generators with 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The center also boasts 2,000 tons of cooling capacity to maintain the center at the optimum temperature for customer equipment.

“We have more than a decade of experience in data centers, and we’re designing this center based on extensive feedback from our customers over the past 10 years.”said Christopher Lodge, vice president for Data Center Services.

Data center and colocation service provider CoreSite will expand its data center in Boston.

CoreSite will expand its Boston data center located at 70 Innerbelt Road in Somerville, Mass., adding 12,000 square feet of space in the second quarter of 2010. The new space will be capable of cooling high performance computing environments, and will feature access to CoreSite’s Any2 Northeast Internet exchange.

The announcement continues the growth at CoreSite, a provider of wholesale data center and colocation space that recently completed an expansion project in northern Virginia and is adding data center space in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.  

CoreSite said it is also beefing up the Boston data center’s security with additional mantraps and biometric scanners, and gated, access-controlled parking with perimeter fencing. CoreSite received a SAS 70 Type II certification at the data center in March 2009.

“The additional wholesale data center and colocation space will meet the growing demands of our existing customer base and prospective New England enterprises,” said David Dunn, CoreSite’s senior vice president of marketing and business development. “We anticipate having the entire expansion phase completed and ready for occupancy by the end of May 2010.”

Michigan releases shared data center RFI. The Michigan Department of Information Technology (MDIT) in conjunction with the state’s Department of Treasury and Department of Management and Budget, issued a request for information (RFI) seeking feedback on forming a public-private partnership to build and operate the facility.  In September 2009 Michigan CIO Ken Theis detailed the plans for what could be a 100,000 square foot facility to run cloud services not only for the state government but for the public sector as well.  The RFI released on January 7th looks for “input from companies or teams of companies that are interested in financing, building and operating the new facility, as well as providing shared IT services to state agencies and others.”  The project is being positioned as a magnet for technology-related economic development and is expected to break ground in October 2010.

$110 million state data center for Massachusetts. A $110 million state data center will be built in Springfield Massachusetts to serve as a backup facility to the main data center in Chelsea. The 115,000 square foot facility is scheduled to be completed in May 2012. Stuart D. Lecky, of the state’s Information Technology Division, said that the data center will be “a critical backup facility that we don’t have today.”  Claiming 50 to 70 percent more energy efficiency than any state facility, great importance is being placed on making it a showcase green data center.  Thirty-five people will be employed at opening, with 70 estimated when fully staffed.

Juniper in SSL VPN magic quadrant. Juniper Networks announced they have been positioned in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant of Gartner’s recently published Magic Quadrant for SSL VPNs.  Evaluation and placement in the quadrant is based on the ability to execute and completeness of vision.  Juniper’s vice president and general manager of the Access and Acceleration Business Unit Sanjay Beri said “Juniper has a long history of delivering competitively disruptive solutions in the marketplace. By aggressively innovating and delivering market leading functionality and reliability on our SSL VPN product line for all use cases—from remote access to partner access to disaster recovery to mobile access—we continue to stay ahead of the curve in delivering a superior remote/LAN access solution for our enterprise and service provider customers worldwide.”

News of the data center initiative in Holyoke, Mass., which is scheduled to be announced Thursday, comes just three weeks after the unveiling of a project in Syracuse, N.Y. featuring similar cooperation between the private sector and academia. The Holyoke project will be a high-performance computing resource for academic and research institutions in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Globe.   

The Holyoke location would allow the data center to use hydroelectric power from the Connecticut River, and can access fiber routes along the nearby Mass Pike. The four partners would all participate in the funding, and may recruit additional participants as well.   

EMC is based in Hopkinton, Mass. while Cisco has a research center in Boxborough.  Paul Bosco, general manager and site executive for Cisco’s New England Development Center in Boxborough, told the Globe that Cisco is participating in the project “not just for the center, but for the opportunity to build a district that could attract high tech by a combination of green and cost-competitive energy.” 

“The potential for breakthrough technologies and research is enormous,” Governor Deval Patrick said in a statement. “Both the center and collaboration will undoubtedly serve to lift up the city of Holyoke and regional economies throughout Western Massachusetts.”

“We have seen tremendous momentum with our customer growth throughout New England,” said Mike Lee, Regional Manager for Hosted Solutions. “Given current market conditions, companies today require a trusted partner who can provide them with services across all areas of IT, rather than simply providing data center space or point solutions. Increasingly, companies recognize both the immediate and ongoing value of having a trusted partner provide them with the full range of outsourced technology services.

Lee said Hosted Solutions’ expansion in New England is part of the strategic direction the company has embarked upon, as part of its acquisition last year by ABRY Partners. The company also has four other high-capacity data centers in North Carolina, serving markets up and down the East Coast. ABRY Partner also owns Houston-based colocation provider CyrusOne, and has invested in significant data center expansions and upgrades at both providers.

This is the second series of upgrades to the company’s Boston operations. Hosted Solutions invested $1 million in upgrades after its acquisition of Boston Datacenters in 2006. Upgrades include a redesign of the interior layout to promote better cooling, an improved data backup system, and additional UPS power support.

The site location decision was based on a “thorough, impartial technical analysis” by the state Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM), the Information Technology Division (ITD) and an unnamed outside consultant. The review found that the Tech High site would save the state millions of dollars in procurement and construction costs.

“The second data center in Springfield will allow us to better manage and protect the systems that provide essential services to our citizens,” said Anne Margulies, the state’s Chief Information Officer. “The Second Data Center is also a key part of our strategy to manage our technology in a more cost effective manner and to become a national model for green and environmental friendly data centers.”

It will take about two years to build out the 114,000 square foot facility, and the project is expected to create approximately 200 construction jobs. Thirty five workers will staff the first phase of the facility, with up to 70 full-time employees on staff when the project is complete.

Jerrold M. Grochow, Vice President for Information Services and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Springfield site is located far enough away from Chelsea to serve as a reliable backup. “The Commonwealth has shown that it fully understands the importance of computer operations to the business of government,” Grochow said. “This makes excellent sense for the government and will provide real value to the taxpayers in the long run.”