San Diego Colo Firm Castle Access Gets Funding

San Diego colocation and managed hosting provider Castle Access said Wednesday that it expcts to make additional investments in data center infrastructure and services after securing “multi-million dollar” equity financing. The company said additional details of the investment will be provided within the next 60 days. Piper Jaffray & Co. served as financial advisor to Castle Access on the transaction.

“As we look at growth in 2010 and beyond, we believe accelerating our opportunities in the data center and IT managed services is key to addressing our customers’ needs in the market,” said Mark Hopperton, CEO of Castle Access. “We look forward to increasing our data center footprint and providing innovative technology and solutions that bring value to our clients.”

Castle Access offers colocation, managed services and a flexible suite of data center options accommodating all types of colocation requirements. The company operates two data centers in the San Diego market.

Earnings Roundup: iWeb, The Planet, Rackspace

Here’s a roundup of quarterly financial results announcements:

iWeb Group first quarter 2010. Canadian provider of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure  iWeb Group announced first quarter 2010 financial results Monday. Revenues increased to $7.2 million, an adjusted EBITDA of $2.1 million was recorded and net income increased to $180,000 compared to the $1,248,000 loss reported a year ago. iWeb announced their fourth data center last month and increased server capacity by 20,000. iWeb’s shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: IWB).

The Planet reports fourth quarter results. Hosting provider The Planet discussed its results for the quarter ending December 31, 2009.  “We ended the fourth quarter and the year with increased revenue and EBITDA beyond 30 percent, despite the tough economic conditions,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Douglas Erwin. The Planet said deal sizes continue to increase, with the company’s complex infrastructure solutions experiencing year-over-year growth of better than 30 percent. Investment plans for 2010 include customer-facing systems, their network and the Virtual Dedicated Server offering as well as data center infrastructure.

Roundup: Hibernia, Telx, Lexent, VeriSign

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Switch & Data adds Hibernia Financial Network. Switch and Data (SDXC) announced that Hibernia Atlantic’s Global Financial Network (GFN) has become part of their GeoReach Program in North Bergen, New Jersey.  Built for the demanding requirements of the financial community Hibernia’s GFN provides a global fiber network dedicated to capital markets across the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Pacific Rim.  “As a part of Switch and Data’s GeoReach Program, we will be able to provide further connectivity throughout North America and Europe from Switch and Data’s New York EcoCenter in North Bergen,” said Joe Hilt, Vice President of Sales, North America for Hibernia Atlantic GFN.  GeoReach participants have engineered optimum paths from Switch and Data’s Financial EcoCenters to each of the regional liquidity providers to satisfy the requirements of the most latency-sensitive infrastructures.  In November 2009 Equinix announced that Hibernia Atlantic was expanding its GFN into the Equinix New York-2 and New York-4 data centers in New Jersey.  Switch and Data announced fourth quarter and full year 2009 financial results last week and confirmed that the Equinix merger is expected to close in the second quarter of 2010.

Telx announces Lexent fiber expansion. Colocation provider Telx announced that Lexent Metro Connect, a leading provider of dark fiber networks in the New York Metropolitan area, has expanded its presence to meet the continued growth of its client base colocating within Telx facilities.  “The Telx interconnection facilities at 60 Hudson St., a major telecommunications hub in New York, and 300 Boulevard East, a carrier-rich connectivity hub for the financial industry, are important to our growing client base,” said Ray La Chance, President of Lexent Metro Connect.  Lexent has an extensive base of enterprise and wholesale clients in the financial trading houses and the Telx expansion will provide both diversity and added capacity to their clients.

Verisign: 192 million domain registrations. In its latest Domain Name Industry Brief, Verisign (VRSN) reported that 2009 was closed with a base of more than 192 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs), an increase of nearly 15 million domain name registrations since the close of 2008.  Overall 96.7 million domain names were registered for .com and .net. Verisign’s average daily DNS query load during the fourth quarter was 52 billion per day with peaks as high as 61 billion per day. Copies of the Domain Name Industry Brief can be obtained here.

The iPad As A Colocation Platform?

The iPadColo.net web site. Is the Apple tablet really a colocation platform?

Is the iPad the hot new player in the colocation game? The hype and hope surrounding the new tablet PC from Apple is already so high that the appearance of iPadColo.net attracted attention yesterday. The site offers the iPad as a dedicated server, housed in a “world class data center” with up to 64GB of data and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to be the “envy of your friends.”

The answer to your question, of course, is “No this is not a real site.” It’s a clever bit of viral marketing from MacMiniColo, a Las Vegas colocation company, has been hosting Mac minis since their introduction in January 2005. MacMinicolo houses its servers in a Switch Communications data center. The deception is revealed when visitors reach the iPadColo.net signup page. “You weren’t really going to sign up were you?” it asks. “We think outside of the box here at Macminicolo, but we’re not that crazy.”

CyrusOne Books Large Colocation Deal

Colocation specialist CyrusOne has built a thriving business providing high-density space to companies in the oil and gas industry. The company’s success in this niche has driven an expansion that has seen CyrusOne expand beyond its Houston home base to add data centers in Dallas and Austin.

The latest example is today’s announcement that CyrusOne has leased 10,000 square feet of colo space in its newest data center to Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), one of the world’s leading oil exploration service companies, which will use its high-density server installation in the West Houston facility to power its global exploration projects and operations.

Petroleum Geo-Services has a secure private data hall within CyrusOne’s West Houston campus, with adjacent office space reserved for PGS employees. The hall is located within the 94,000 square foot first phase of the West Houston campus, which will eventually house more than 200,000 square feet of mission-critical colocation space.

Corelink Leases Chicago Data Center

Corelink Data Centers said today that it has expanded its network to the Chicago market, entering into a long-term lease for an 81,600 square foot facility in the Chicago suburb of Mt. Prospect. The building has 10,000 square feet of existing data center space, and Corelink plans to modify the infrastructure to support power densities of up to 200 watts per square foot, with the ability to support higher density zones.

Corelink said it has secured more than 16 megawatts of power for the facility, which will eventually be able to house up to 65,000 square feet of useable raised floor, providing ample space for expansion. The location in Mount Prospect is about 25 miles west of downtown Chicago, close to O’Hare Airport but outside of flight paths, the company said.

Corelink was founded in 2007 and is backed by M/C Ventures of Boston and has existing data centers in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle. Corelink’s founder and CEO is Geoff Hampson, who has been involved in numerous startups, including Peer 1 Network Enterprises, where he served as CEO from 2000 through 2006. Corelink says it has an “active” mergers and acquisitions program and anticipates further expansion of its colocation facility footprint.

Review: The Colocation Market in 2009

Sune Christesen at Data Center Map has put together a wide-ranging overview of the colocation market for 2009, which itemizes facility expansions and other developments at seven leading providers in the U.S. and Europe. The report includes a chart that provides a side-by-side comparison of key metrics for Interxion, Telehouse, CoreSite, Telx, Telecity and Global Switch, including their data center capacity.

Data Center Map is a free site that lists more than 1,500 data center and web hosting facilities around the world, allowing users to either browse facilities by country and city, or display facilities using Google Maps.

Answers.com Colos With C7 Data Centers

Answers Corporation (ANSW) has signed a multi-year agreement for colocation services with C7 Data Centers, Inc., a data center and managed services provider based in Lindon, Utah. Answers selected C7’s facility as the production site for services to the western U.S. and Asia-Pacific for its web sites, which include Answers.com,  WikiAnswers and ReferenceAnswers.

“We were impressed at how C7 demonstrated great flexibility in accommodating our high growth needs,” said Dan Marriott, Director of Production Operations, Answers Corporation. “In addition to being located in a disaster-free zone, they provide secure, enterprise-level facilities, a range of cost-effective services including local technical and admin support and importantly, the geographic load balancing we require for our organization.”

Switch & Data Shareholders OK Equinix Deal

Shareholders of Switch & Data have voted to approve the company’s proposed acquisition by Equinix, the companies said Friday. Completion of the $700 million deal is delayed by pending approvals from federal antitrust regulators, and not likely to close until the second quarter. Switch and Data will announce the expected closing date in a press release five business days before the expected closing date.

Switch and Data (SDXC) recently moved to settle three lawsuits related to the sale to Equinix. A memorandum of understanding between Switch and Data and lawyers for plaintiffs would have all claims dismissed with prejudice in return for attorneys fees and costs, estimated at about $900,000.  

“Switch and Data and the other defendants deny all of the allegations in the lawsuits and believe that the existing disclosures regarding the proposed merger are appropriate under the law,” the company said in an SEC filing. “Nevertheless, Switch and Data and the other defendants have agreed to settle the putative class action lawsuits in order to eliminate the risk, burden and expense of further litigation, to fully resolve all claims raised in the lawsuits, to permit the merger to be consummated without the risk of injunctive relief or delay, and to permit Switch and Data’s stockholders to receive the consideration provided for in the merger.”