Scottrade Opens St. Louis Data Center

Online brokerage Scottrade has moved into a new 34,000 square foot data center in suburban St. Louis, implementing a major redesign of the firm’s IT infrastructure as part of the migration. An existing building was renovated for use as an advanced data center capable of processing up to 1 million transactions per day, with the conversion taking less than 12 months to complete.

“This is the largest investment in new technology that Scottrade has ever made,” said Rodger Riney, president and CEO of Scottrade. “We have seen remarkable growth in recent years, and this data center will allow our technology and customer base to continue to expand at the rate we expect.”

Bandwidth Exchange Powers Gaming Network

One of the trends we’ve tracked here at Data Center Knowledge is the growth of online gaming and its potential to create demand for data center services. While much of our coverage has focused on the MMORPG sector, there’s also growth in the market for multi-player game servers and game hosting. An example is today’s announcement that Progression Networks will use the meet-me room of the Bandwidth Exchange in St. Louis to enhance network connectivity for its GameRail Network.

GameRail operates a high speed network that directly connects online game players to the servers that host the most popular and demanding titles. By deploying with a unique network peering approach to ISPs, universities and game server providers (GSPs), GameRail is able to deliver superior performance to its subscribers. Low latency (”lag”) is crucial in multiplayer first-person shooter games like CounterStrike, where a slow connection can much up gameplay and/or leave a player at a competitive disadvantage. The service, which is free during its current beta period, eventually plans to charge $15 a month for subscribers.

“Because of the Peering opportunities with the Bandwidth Exchange Buildings’ existing clients, we are able to fast start our network and also provide superior performance for our peer’s online gaming subscribers,” said GameRail’s CEO Blake Ashby. “Turning up in a carrier hotel like the Bandwidth Exchange Buildings also give us rapid access to leading carriers to build a national network.”