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Some Fiber is Darker Than Others
June 1st, 2009 : Rich Miller
Do you remember when these guys showed up after that fiber cut? No, I guess not.
There’s dark fiber, and then there’s “black” fiber. And if your backhoe hits some of that top-secret fiber used by Federal security agencies, the Men in Black will arrive in a hurry to organize an unusually fast repair. At least that’s the story told in The Washington Post, which recounts an incident in 2000 when a fiber cut in Tysons Corner brought a visit from men in suits driving black SUVs.
“The construction manager was shocked,” developer Aaron Georgelas told the Post. “He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you’ve got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing.”
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Digital Realty Expands Ashburn Campus
May 18th, 2009 : Rich Miller
One of the data centers at the Digital Realty Trust campus in Ashburn, Va.
Digital Realty Trust has acquired 34 acres next to its huge data center campus in Ashburn, Virginia and will use the land to add as much as 400,000 square feet of new data center space. The company has already begun construction on a 135,000 square foot data center that will come online in the fourth quarter of this year.
The expansion by Digital Realty, the largest data center landlord, is driven by dwindling data center capacity in northern Virginia, where large users of data center infrastructure have recently signed leases to lock down finished space. Digital Realty says there are more big leases on the horizon.
“The addition of the property contiguous to our existing facilities in Ashburn allows us to create a datacenter campus environment that will deliver significant operating economies of scale and sufficient new inventory to meet the ongoing demand in this top tier market,” said Michael F. Foust, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Trust. “We currently are tracking a significant number of datacenter requirements in the market and are on schedule to complete the construction of the next phase, a 135,000 square foot facility, in the fourth quarter of 2009.”
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Virginia Passes Data Center Tax Incentives
May 13th, 2009 : Rich MillerThe state of Virginia has adopted targeted tax incentives to attract major data center projects to the state, which is already one of the most active data center markets. The incentives are designed to keep Virginia competitive with other states that have passed similar tax incentives to attract data center projects, and positions the commonwealth to benefit from IT investment in the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan.
Last month both houses of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously passed the incentive package, which offers tax breaks on servers and other equipment purchases for either new or existing data centers. The bill was promptly signed into law by Gov. Tim Kaine.
The new measure offers an exemption from the Virginia Retail Sales and Use tax for computer equipment bought or leased between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2020 for use in a data center. The facility must be located in Virginia, generate capital investment of at least $150 million and create at least 50 new jobs that pay one and one half times the prevailing average wage in the locality.
Interested companies will need to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) detailing the spending and jobs associated with the project.
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Virginia’s Chopra Named New Federal CTO
April 20th, 2009 : Rich MillerAmerica’s new Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, is familiar with the data center sector from his duties as secretary of technology in Virginia, a state with a large concentration of major data centers. President Barack Obama announced Saturday that Chopra will be the nation’s new CTO.
Chopra is clearly aware of the industry’s large appetite for power, which has been an issue in northern Virginia. “Data centers are the energy hogs of the 21st century,” Chopra told Government Technology last year. “If we all believe we need to have renewable energy and energy independence in this country, those of us in the IT community must step up and acknowledge that we are net consumers in a significant way.”
We reached out to a number of Virginia data center operators to get their take on Chopra’s appointment. Tom Deaderick, a director at the OnePartner Data Center in southwest Virginia, said he was very impressed with Chopra’s intellect, energy and accessibility.
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Pryme Preps New Ashburn Facility
April 7th, 2009 : Rich MillerColocation provider Pryme Technologies will open a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia in July. The company is postiioning its new 72,0000 square foot facility as an “alternative to existing high priced facilities in the area.”
“We have spared no expense to bring the best of all solutions to our new Datacenter to provide top notch service at an affordable price,” the company said on its web site. “With facilities designed and engineered by top firms in the industry (24/7 Inc, JC Porter Inc, Notari, CCG, DNL Power, Wilhelm Construction) we have brought the best of the best to design our Tier III+ Datacenter.”
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SEC Mulls Data Center Relocation
February 19th, 2009 : Rich MillerThe Social Security Administration isn’t the only federal agency contemplating new data center digs as it prepares for an expansion of its mission. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking at alternatives to its current primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia.
The SEC recently issued a request for information, hoping to gather pricing information for a “turnkey solution” to relocate the SEC’s operation, which supports the EDGAR database of investor information for the U.S. financial markets. The agency’s lease on its current data center expires in March 2010, and it is evaluating whether to renew its lease or migrate to another facility.
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Stimulus Funding Drives $750M Fed Data Center
February 19th, 2009 : Rich MillerThe Social Security Administration will use fresh funding from the Obama administration’s stimulus plan to build a $750 million high-security data center in the Baltimore area, federal officials tell the Baltimore Sun. The agency will dedicate $500 million of its $1 billion in new funding from the stimulus package to the data center project, with the other half going to staff hiring to reduce huge backlogs in disability claims.
The SSA is seeking a large parcel of land within 40 miles of Baltimore for the new data center, which will replace the agency’s National Computer Center, which is 30 years old and “severely limited” in its capacity. The facility maintains earnings and benefits information for nearly every American worker, processing 75 million transactions per day. “All of our plans depend upon a strong, 21st century data center,” the agency said in a recent document describing its needs.
The administration’s plan to convert America’s health care system to electronic records is a key driver in the data center storage requirements for the SSA, which is already maintains the nation’s largest volume of electronic health records. Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue says that the existing facility in Woodlawn, Md. will probably run out of storage capacity by late 2012, but a new data center will likely not be completed before 2014. The agency is making plans to fill the gap until the new facility is completed, Astrue told the Sun.
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Large Users Locking Up Space in Virginia
February 18th, 2009 : Rich Miller
The DuPont Fabros ACC5 data center in Ashburn, Virginia under construction last year.
Are large users moving to lock down data center space in key markets ahead of a potential shortage next year? Concerns about the availability of high-quality space are a factor in a flurry of leases in northern Virginia in recent weeks, according to one of the region’s largest data center landlords, who says Internet companies are seeking an early-mover advantage by signing leases now.
The reports are the latest indicator of the effect the credit crunch is having on the data center market. The economic crisis is affecting demand for data center services, a trend seen most clearly in longer sales cycles for some managed hosting and colocation services. But it’s having an even larger impact in the supply of data center space by limiting new construction. Data center construction typically takes 12 to 24 months, setting the stage for a pronounced supply-demand imbalance in the most active markets.
“We are seeing a supply restriction in all major markets, especially Northern Virginia,” said Hossein Fateh, president and CEO of DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT), a data center developer. ”The lack of supply has led to a increase in leasing, and we will continue to see that.”
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