Which raises a question: Is Sealand still operating a functional hosting facility? A colocation provider that hosted data on the offshore platform folded back in 2008. But the leader of the proclaimed Principality of Sealand says they still have the capability to host customers.

“There are still some servers operating from the Sealand fortress CoLo facility,” said Michael Bates, also known as Michael of Sealand, in an email to DCK.

For those just joining the story, Sealand is a former anti-aircraft platform perched on two concrete towers 8 miles off the coast of England. Entrepreneur Roy Bates took control of the facility in 1966 and declared it the Principality of Sealand, a sovereign nation and tax haven. In 2000, investors turned it into a colo facility for web sites seeking to locate outside any government jurisdiction.

Wired Cover Story

The colo provider, HavenCo, was briefly famous when it was featured on the cover of Wired magazine in 2001. The colocation operation fell on hard times after the dot com crash, and last year SeaLand was badly damaged in a fire. While there were many challenges to maintaining a data center in the middle of the ocean, the lack of a nearby fire department proved one of the facility’s most serious shortcomings.

In 2007 Sealand announced that it was for sale and there was a brief effort to supporters of The Pirate Bay to buy the facility.

Sealand doesn’t appear to be actively marketing hosting services. The principality’s new web site mentions that it is selling e-mail services, but the page has an “under construction” sign and no content. An online store sells branded Sealand merchandise, including pens, mugs and T-shirts.

But the web site doesn’t appear to be physically hosted at Sealand. A Netcraft dig and traceroutes indicate that the site has been served most recently by Business Catalyst, a division of Adobe Systems.

• Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which require merchants and service providers that store, process, or transmit custom payment card data to adhere to strict information security controls and processes created by the founding brands of the PCI Security Standards Council –American Express, Discover Financial, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc.
• Completed its latest Statement on Standards and Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE 16) audit with zero exceptions for the period between September 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011.  For seven consecutive years, RagingWire has completed Type II audits, which involve a more in-depth testing of controls and practices of a six-month period.
• Awarded LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the primary standard for the design, construction, and operation of environmentally friendly data centers.  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification of RagingWire’s facility were based on the data center’s minimized water usage, optimized energy performance, and efficiency in environmental monitoring and enhanced water treatment.
• Earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR certification, becoming the only 2011 ENERGY STAR certified data center focused on multi-tenant collocation services.  They achieved this certification through a partnership with Johnson Controls and Synapsense to improve data floor environmental monitoring and chiller efficiency and Schneider Electric to retrofit HVAV plant pumps with variable frequency drive motors, resulting in increased energy efficiency.

“RagingWire is pleased to accept the EPA’s ENERGY STAR certification in recognition of our energy efficiency efforts,” said Yatish Mishra, president and CEO of RagingWire. “Through this achievement, we have demonstrated our commitment to energy efficiency innovation and environmental stewardship at all levels of the RagingWire organization.”

“We are very pleased with Colo5′s consistent, rapid growth and ability to accommodate the increasing demand for more data center space in Florida,” said Doug Recker, Chief Executive Officer of Colo5. “Due to the high demand for our services, Colo5 plans to develop additional data centers in Jacksonville and other markets to better support the Southeast Region.”

Colo5 currently houses clients in industries such as retail, banking, managed services, and healthcare. The company operates a disaster recovery center in a 122,000 square foot former Barnett Bank facility, which came online in 2009. The facility includes a 30,000 square foot data center and 50 disaster recovery suites.

Knology Inc. (KNOL) is headquartered in West Point, Georgia and provides broadband network service to business and residential customers in the Southeast, upper Midwest and Kansas regions. Its offerings include digital cable TV, local and long distance digital telephone service and high-speed Internet access.

E Solutions is a Tampa-based hosting and application development firm that creates and hosts software solutions that enable clients ranging from global Fortune 100 firms to mid-sized and small businesses. E Solutions initially acquired data center space from Fourthstage/Aperian, and in 2006 expanded by acquiring a former Genuity facility.

“The addition of E Solutions will enhance Knology’s already strong commercial product offering and allow us to better serve our business customers,” said Todd Holt, President of Knology. “This transaction demonstrates our ongoing disciplined approach toward merger and acquisition opportunities given the economic aspects, as well as the quality of the people and assets involved. Knology will be able to leverage its existing customer base, salesforce and certain real estate to complement a datacenter business that already has a healthy growth profile. We welcome the E Solutions team to Knology and are excited about our future together.”

“E Solutions has been delivering superior products to its customers for over a decade and has a proven track record of growing revenue and generating free cash flow,” said Rick Nicholas, Jr., Chief Operating Officer of E Solutions.

From a financial perspective, the transaction is immediately accretive to Knology on a levered free cash flow per share basis. Stephens Inc. served as financial advisor to Knology and RBC Capital Markets, LLC acted as financial advisor to E Solutions in this transaction.

This white paper from SunGard examines this relationship between wattage and floor space in data centers, and the reality that all data center “space” is not the same. It describes the benefits of prioritizing power density and availability over physical space as purchasing criterion, and how a data center can put the concept into practical use. It goes on to demonstrate the calculations an IT organization can perform in order to determine its power needs, detailed figures and examples of how to best calculate wattage per square foot calculation, and the difference between draw power and actual power usage. Finally, it discusses cooling distribution calculations based on wattage and physical space, and the importance of identifying the lowest-cost providers of colocation space for a data center.

Learn the fundamentals of deciding where and how to effectively collocate IT infrastructure and determining how much square footage is truly necessary. Click here to download this white paper on the importance of power usage over physical data center space in choosing a colocation provider.

Please visit the Data Center Knowledge White Paper Library for all the latest expert insights on technologies to run your data center.

iTRACS Enhances DCIM Software –  iTRACS Corporation today announced the release of its CPIM iCDC v2.4.1 software, which offers iTRACS customers a range of enhanced DCIM capabilities, including more robust intelligent capacity planning, space management, and dynamic modeling features to help accelerate knowledge-based decision-making and change management in today’s most complex infrastructure environments. This latest release helps users simplify the adoption and ongoing maintenance of their DCIM solution, optimize the accuracy of their data center models without any manual intervention, and generate a higher continuous return on their DCIM investment.”This release extends the capabilities of the CPIM™ portfolio as it creates proven, continuous business value for our customers,” said Elizabeth Given, President and CEO of iTRACS. “Customers will see quantifiable improvements in how efficiently they can manage the complex interrelationships between assets, conduct moves, adds, and changes, and commission assets.

IO Modules Selected by Avnet Technology Solutions – Modular data center service provider IO been awarded a contract from Avnet Technology Solutions, the global IT solutions distribution leader, the company said today. As part of this new agreement, IO will provide Avnet Technology Solutions with Data Center as a Service (DCaaS) at IO Phoenix, delivered through its modular technology platform IO Anywhere. “IO is fundamentally changing the way customers purchase and scale their data center infrastructures,” said Tim FitzGerald, vice president, Data Center Technology Solutions Practices, Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas. “IO’s capabilities will enable us to expand our managed and cloud services within the Avnet Data Center Lifecycle Services portfolio to support the future data center needs of our partners and their customers.”

CoreLink Data Centers to Support Seattle Computing - CoreLink Data Centers has added Seattle Computing to its client roster. CoreLink will provide network infrastructure support to the IT service provider from its Seattle data center facilities, further strengthening the existing enterprise services Seattle Computing provides to its small-to-medium sized customers. “CoreLink and Seattle Computing are both dedicated to delivering unmatched service levels that our respective companies perform in support of our own businesses,” said Chris Nordstrom, Seattle Computing’s vice president of sales and marketing. “We are confident that by entrusting CoreLink to meet our customers’ IT infrastructure support requirements, they will receive the same quality services they’ve grown accustomed to.”

Zayo Connects to Green House Data in Cheyenne – Zayo Group announces the completion of a fiber build into the Green House Data facility, Wyoming’s first multi-tenant data center, offering cloud hosting and colocation services. In addition to the build, Zayo will provide IP Transit service to Green House Data while enabling on-net connectivity to its 70 tenants from 24 states and 3 countries. “We’re excited to add Zayo to our data “enter in Cheyenne, a growing hub of data center activity,” said Shawn Mills, President of Green House Data. “Leveraging Zayo’s nationwide metro and long haul fiber network supports our customers’ growing bandwidth needs.”

Colocation and managed services provider DataChambers has agreed to be acquired by North State Communications, a leading telecom provider in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. North State says the acquisition of DataChambers, which operates a data center canpus in Winston-Salem will boost its customer offerings and data center infrastructure. The deal does not include the records management business, Data-Chambers Records Management, which will be retained by the current owners.

The deal is the latest in a series of deals in which telecom companies have acquired colocation or managed services providers, including a transaction last year in which North Carolina-based managed hosting firm Hosted Solutions was bought by Windstream.

“The acquisition advances our strategy to diversify our business and revenue mix and will strengthen North State’s efforts in becoming the preferred provider of business communications and data solutions across the Triad and beyond,” said Hayden McKenzie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of North State Communications. “DataChambers operates approximately 120,000 square feet of data center and disaster recovery space, and offers electronic data storage and managed IT services that will benefit both existing and new customers.”

“We are very excited to join the North State family,” said Nicholas Kottyan, Chief Executive Officer of DataChambers. “We believe that this combination will offer our customers the opportunity to grow with us, while providing additional value to North State’s customers and shareholders.”

DataChambers specializes in data storage, managed services and secure colocation. DataChambers was named one of 2011’s fastest growing companies as part of Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 500/5000 and was ranked 18th in Business Leader magazine’s 2011 Top 300 Small Businesses of the South. It also was recently named one of the 50 fastest-growing, privately held companies in the Triad by The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area.

. Stifel Nicolaus & Co., Incorporated served as exclusive financial advisor to DataChambers in the transaction. Charlesmead Advisors, LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to North State Communications. Financing for the acquisition was facilitated by High Point Bank in partnership with US Bank.

About North State Communications
One of the nation’s top 15 largest communications companies, North State Communications (NSC) provides the preeminent Internet, voice, wireless, data and advanced television services to businesses and consumers in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. NSC’s Plex Advanced TV and Broadband Internet services are backed by the area’s most advanced fiber optic network. The company’s unique blend of superior technology and service delivery has made it one of the fastest growing telecommunications and home entertainment providers in the region. For more information visit: http://www.northstate.net.

About DataChambers
DataChambers is a full-service information technology and managed services provider specializing in electronic data storage, 24×7 managed information technology solutions and secure co-location services for mission-critical information technology infrastructure. The company is SAS 70 Type II audited and meets rigorous national standards for safeguarding client systems and data. DataChambers’ 120,000+ -square-foot data center is located in Winston-Salem, N.C. For more information, visit www.datachambers.com.

FORTRUST Completes SOC 2 Audit - FORTRUST, Colorado’s leading premium data center services provider and colocation facility, announced the completion of its Service Organization Control (“SOC”) 2 Type 2 audit over Security and Availability for their Denver, Colorado based Data Center and Colocation facility. FORTRUST, upon advice from their independent auditing firm EKS&H, made the decision earlier in the year to complete the conversion to SOC 2 reporting during their normal audit cycle for the former SAS 70 Type II reporting period that they have been completing annually since 2007. The SOC 2 report provides FORTRUST’s customers with an understanding of the internal controls of FORTRUST relevant to security and availability.

Nimbus Unveils New Corporate HQ – Nimbus Data Systems, Inc has expanded its operations to a new corporate headquarters in South San Francisco to accommodate rapidly accelerating demand for its flash storage systems. This expansion follows another record quarter for the company. In 2011, Nimbus achieved numerous wins in Oracle and SQL database clusters, VMware and Citrix VDI and Virtualization projects, rich content production, and high-performance analytics at Universities and government agencies. “Nimbus is driven to accelerate the adoption of flash technology to every corner of the enterprise IT infrastructure, and our new headquarters and record-setting financial performance will help us achieve these goals,” stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO and founder of Nimbus.

PeakColo Attains VMware Premier Level – PeakColo, a leading provider of Infrastructure-as-a-Service and VMware vCloud Powered cloud services, today announced that it is now a member of the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) as a Premier-level member. PeakColo has made, and continues to make, significant investments to grow and enhance its relationship and capabilities with VMware.“VMware has provided us fantastic support.” say Luke Norris, Founder and CEO. “Their partner, technical and marketing teams have provided us the knowledge and tools to build, grow and enhance our model”.

Vector Data Systems Selects AiNET – AiNET announced this week that its facility in Beltsville, MD has been selected by Vector Data Systems for data center colocation, rooftop rights for antennas, and AiNET’s Internet connectivity services. “As a provider of mission-critical services ourselves, we chose AiNET based on the reliability of their data centers, the quality and certainty of their Internet connectivity, and their flexible ‘can-do’ approach to our complicated needs,” said Patrick Shoemaker, president of Vector Data Systems. He added, “We were also impressed that their 100% SLA (Service Level Agreement) covers their data center and the Internet connectivity.”

This white paper presented in joint sponsorship by Data Center Knowledge (DCK) and CyrusOne outlines key factors and options that are rooted in both customer experience and DCK’s annual survey of more than 200 IT professionals.  

Key to the recommendations that this paper provides is a look at what impacts a choice of one global provider vs. a specialized provider.  Charted are organization type, business practices – processes and controls, desired technological services, as well as localized cultural factors. Each of these areas is bulleted with the complexities that define them. The paper concludes by noting three choices for the enterprise considering expansion; a global provider, a hybrid solution, or utilizing multiple providers.  

With an eye toward growth the data center professional leveraging the advantages that a colocation service can provide will find the information in this whitepaper valuable toward understanding that end.

“Customers tell us there is a current lack of high quality data center options in the marketplace,” says Five 9s CEO, Doug Hollidge. “In our solution, The Connexion will provide high connectivity, private data suites, route redundancy and environmental efficiencies.”

Since 2005 the Eagan Technology Working Group has been studying the broadband needs of the city.  Due to its cold climate, the Eagan area is ideal for the use of  ”free cooling” (using outside air to cool servers), making it nicely suited as a data center location.  The Connexion will also solve the issue of high capacity fiber networks in the area having to funnel through one facility in the region before transmitting to the rest of the world.  XO Communications will be one of the fiber service providers for The Connexion offering high capacity connectivity via an alternate Southern long haul fiber route which will connect to a transwestern fiber link.  This offers other providers another level of redundant service in the region.

The facility is slated for completion in the third quarter of 2012. For more information, visit the Eagan Patch article and Press Release