“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.”

The Providence Journal notes that the data center relocation effort is being launched as Rhode Island faces a huge budget deficit. Amy Kempe, a spokesperson for Gov. Donald Carcieri, said the search is driven by the condition of the existing state data center. “The current center is a former used-car-lot building that is in poor shape and has more value to the surrounding businesses in the area,” Kempe told the Journal. “By relocating the IT department, the building and land can be sold at the appropriate time.”

The state’s main data center is housed in a former Volkswagen dealership in Johnston, which was bought for $505,000 in 1981. The state’s capital plan includes $8.9 million for a new IT center, but officials said the depressed state of the commercial real estate market may allow them to acquire a property for less than that and bank the savings.

The Providence paper outlined the state’s search criteria:  

The state is seeking to buy a handicapped-accessible building that is within 15 miles of the generating source for its power, has 250 dedicated parking spaces and a security system that is already equipped with “multi-layer entry, card access, camera active surveillance,” has a rooftop gas-fired heating, cooling and ventilation system and meets specific electrical-power requirements, according to the State Properties Committee Web page.

TJX Cos. Inc. is seeking a location to build a 150,000 square foot data center, according to real estate sources in the Boston market. TJX has its headquarters in Framingham, Mass. and is hoping to find a site that can accommodate a short-term data center project as well as the company’s long-term plans to add up to 600,000 square feet of office space.

Colocation demand in the Boston market is keeping data center providers busy, according to a profile in Mass High Tech that discusses recent activity at CRG West, Internap Network Services (INAP) and the Markley Group, which owns the One Summer Street carrier hotel. The story notes Internap’s recent expansion at CRG’s 70 Innerbelt project, as well as the role of increasing power loads in customer decisions to seek third-party data center space.

[2N+1] is described as “something of a boutique operation” targeting customers needing between 250 and 5,000 square feet of colocation space. “Those are the customers that are historically the least amount of trouble to work with,” said Bono, who worked as a data center designer for HarvardNet and Boston Datacenters.. “Very large companies want you to offer all of these ancillary managed services that we don’t want to get into. And very small customers want you to essentially be their IT team, and we don’t want to do that, either.” The new data center is scheduled to open for business next month.

The House debate involved some political infighting. Here’s a summary from MassLive.com:

During debate on the legislation, members voted 113-36 to defeat an effort by two Springfield Democrats to strip language from the bill inserted by Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati, D-Ludlow, that orders the state to build the data center at a disputed site at Springfield Technical Community College. Members voted to uphold Petrolati’s selection of the technology park, but provide oversight from the state Inspector General. In a rare challenge to Petrolati, one of the most powerful House members, Reps. Sean F. Curran and Angelo J. Puppolo Jr. fought for an amendment that sought to allow Gov. Deval L. Patrick to choose a site in Springfield.

The Springfield Technical Community College’s technology park was rejected as a site for the data center in a 2006 report by the administration of former Gov. W. Mitt Romney because of security and space problems. The Romney administration wanted to build the data center at a former high school in Springfield. The new facility would provide backup for a main technology center in Chelsea and would create about 50 jobs.