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Internap Expands Seattle Data Center
November 6th, 2009 : Rich MillerInternap Network Services (INAP) said Thursday that it will expand its data center in Seattle as part of a broader effort to shift more of its colocation business from partner data centers into facilities owned by Internap. The Seattle expansion is expected to cost $22 million, or nearly half of the $50 million Internap has earmarked for its data center expansion.
The project will add 15,000 net sellable square feet of capacity to Internap’s current footprint in Seattle, with the new space expected to open during the third quarter of 2010. “Seattle was a compelling choice for expansion because of our multi-facility footprint, local market knowledge, existing sales and support infrastructure as well as our ability to leverage brand reputation,” said Internap CEO Eric Cooney. “We feel this market offers Internap a unique opportunity to expand with relatively low risk and relatively high reward.”
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FiberCloud Outage Affects City Services
October 23rd, 2009 : Rich MillerA power outage yesterday in a FiberCloud data center knocked out phone and Internet services for the city of Bellingham, Washington. The outage also took out phone services for the Whatcom County call center for flu clinics as the system experienced heavy call volume in the wake of the county’s first death linked to H1N1 swine flu. Service was restored after about an hour, and the downtime was attributed to an “internal electrical fault” at the FiberCloud data center, which hosts equipment supporting city and county services. See the Bellingham Herald for additional details.
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Sabey Addresses Tukwila Flood Concerns
September 22nd, 2009 : Rich Miller
This map from the City of Tukwila, Wash. shows the location of the Sabey Intergate.East data center complex in relation to areas facing potential flooding this fall (diagonal lines).
Public officials in Tukwila, Wash. are preparing for potentially serious flooding in the Seattle suburb, but the owner of a major data center complex in town says its facilities are outside the threatened area. Sabey Corp., which operates the Intergate.East Technology Campus, says the development will remain “high and dry” in any flooding related to problems with the Howard Hanson dam.
The dam was damaged during heavy rainfall last winter, prompting the Army Corps of Engineers to restrict water levels behind the dam. This will increase the volume of water in the Green River, raising the possibility that seasonal fall rains could overtop the levees and flood sections of Tukwila, Renton, Kent, South Seattle and Auburn.
Microsoft Among Tenants
Intergate.East is home to data centers for Microsoft and Internap and is separated from the Green River by Highway 599, which is expected to serve as a buffer for any flood waters. Sabey addressed the issue in a letter to tenants (PDF) last month.“We are pleased to confirm what we have always believed, that Intergate.East is not in danger of flooding from any increased water flows in the Green and Duwamish Rivers,” wrote Sabey, which also has published a map from the City of Tukwila documenting the potential flood zones.
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Insulation Failure Cited in Fisher Plaza Outage
September 17th, 2009 : Rich Miller
A picture of the damage to two bus ducts at Fisher Plaza in Seattle from a July electrical incident that caused a major outage for its data center tenants.
A major power outage that disrupted data centers at Seattle’s Fisher Plaza in July was probably caused by an insulation failure in an electrical bus duct that connected the building to the power grid, according to a report to tenants by the building’s owner.
The July 2 incident knocked payment processor Authorize.net offline, disrupting e-commerce for thousands of web sites, while also causing lengthy downtime for Microosft’s Bing Travel service, domain registrar Dotster, colocation company Internap and web hosting provider AdHost,
An investigation by Power Science Engineering Inc. of Shoreline, Wash. concluded that the failure of two bus ducts – enclosures housing copper bars to conduct electricity – in a basement power room of Fisher Plaza was likely caused by “progressive degradation” of insulation, which ultimately led the bus duct to fail. The incident report is available at the TechFlash web site.
No Single ‘Stimulus’
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Investigators said such failures are usually prompted by a “stimulus” such as movement of the duct or sudden changes in large loads, but that none of those conditions existed at the time of the failure at 11:11 p.m. on July 2. Power Science concluded that the insulation wore down over time due to thermal and mechanical stresses at a bend in the duct. -
Photos of Fire Damage at Fisher Plaza
July 7th, 2009 : Rich MillerThe Seattle-focused technology blog TechFlash has been working all the local angles on last week’s fire at Fisher Plaza, which left many data centers in the telecom hub without power for more than a day. TechFlash has obtained the Seattle Fire Department’s investigation report on the incident, along with photos of the fire damage inside a garage-level electrical room at Fisher Plaza.
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Switch and Data Expands at Westin Building
January 13th, 2009 : Rich Miller
Colocation and interconnection specialist Switch and Data(SDXC) has expanded its data center space at the Westin Building, the largest carrier hotel in Seattle. The new suite adds nearly 9,000 gross square feet of additional capacity to Switch and Data’s existing facility at the Westin, where it now operates 65,000 square feet of space.Switch and Data said the expansion was needed to meet high customer demand for interconnections at The Westin Building, a major communications hub for IP traffic traversing the Northern Transpacific undersea fiber route between North America and Asia.
The new space can support power densities of 200 watts per square foot, and was finished in December, completing Switch and Data’s 2008 capacity expansion plan.
“Our Seattle market expansion builds on our plan to help our customers accelerate their Internet-centric businesses with high performance and availability,” said Ernie Sampera, Senior VP of Marketing for Switch and Data. “Switch and Data facilities give our customers access to a critical mass of network and bandwidth providers across the broadest footprint of key communications hub markets in North America.”
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Seattle Telecom Hub Fisher Plaza Is For Sale
May 28th, 2008 : Rich MillerFisher Plaza, a major data center and communications hub in Seattle, is for sale. Fisher Communications, Inc. (FSCI) said today that it is “exploring alternatives for its real estate holdings,” including Fisher Plaza.
Fisher Plaza is a Class A office, data center and retail campus near the Space Needle with approximately 294,000 rentable square feet. In 2008, Fisher expects the property to generate approximately $7.5 million in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).
Internap (INAP) has a significant data center presence at Fisher Plaza, while other industry tenants include Adhost, Cogent Communications (CCOI), Electric Lightwave, AboveNet, Global Crossing, Time Warner Telecom and Qwest. Fisher Plaza also operates its own colocation space in the building
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King County Plans $21M Lease in Tukwila
August 30th, 2007 : Rich MillerThe county executive of King County, Washington has proposed spending $21 million to lease data center space in Tukwila, a Seattle suburb that is home to many existing data centers. The King County Council had previously considered buying and upgrading a building at 1130 Rainier Avenue in downtown Seattle, but ultimately dropped those plans in favor of the Tukwila lease. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a story that reviews the debate about the county’s decisions on its data center requirements.
The 1130 Rainier site, which was once the headquarters of digital music company Loudeye, would have housed the county’s elections equipment in addition to the data center. The county opted to lease space in Renton for the elections office, and seek separate digs for its data center. Critics say that splitting the data center and elections office requirements will be $15 million more than the estimated cost of buying and retrofitting the Seattle site, but some council members say the estimate for a rehab of 1130 Rainier may be on the low side.
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Ask.com Plans Washington St. Data Center
February 9th, 2007 : Rich MillerSearch engine Ask.com has signed a lease for a data center in an existing building in Moses Lake, Washington, according to John Cook of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who said the company declined to name the building or specify the size of the data center.
Ask.com’s decision continues the data center building boom in central Washington State, where four other major projects are already underway. Microsoft has announced plans for a huge data center complex in Quincy, as has Intuit. Meanwhile, Yahoo and Sabey Corp. are starting projects in nearby Wenatchee.
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