It has been refreshing to see more coverage in the business and tech press related to the wholesale data center category, or what Michael Vizard has recognized as data center warehouses. The concept of a company that builds and leases data center space in large quantities is unknown to many CIOs and CFOs, but I think that may change as data center developers ramp up data center innovation and start to take unique enterprise and geographical needs seriously.
Vizard: Moving the Data Center to a New Warehouse | Blogs | ITBusinessEdge.com
Vizard: The Lost Art of the Data Center | CTO Edge
Edwards: Grow your data center with colocation – Computerworld
Troianovski: Web Growth Sparks Data-Center Boom – WSJ.com (must be a subscriber)
When you consider the macro opportunities and operating pressures facing IT today -and the capital efficiency challenges confronting most organizations- one cannot help but to see the data center as becoming increasingly strategic to virtually all enterprises.
Another encouraging development: news outlets talking about the difference between retail colocation and wholesale (John Edwards at Computerworld):
There are two general types of colocation providers: wholesale and retail. Wholesale colocation providers deal with large spaces — a 10,000-square-foot data center, for example. Except for the power and cooling infrastructure, it’s essentially empty space. The customer, or tenant, does the work of rolling in the servers and racks, cabling up the gear and making sure it all works.
[...] Because of the increasing importance of IT competitiveness and operating advantage, enterprises are exploring wholesale data center leases instead of outsourcing or leasing retail colocation space or even building their own advanced facility, which today is a riskier and costlier proposition. Wholesale space allows the enterprise to customize the data center to their unique IT environment demands while maintaining complete control over their critical IT assets and personnel. Enterprises get substantial savings in power costs, reduce their carbon footprint and leverage REIT money. For more information read Wholesale Data Centers in the News. [...]
By: Crunch Time in the Clouds « ARCHIMEDIUS on October 28, 2011
at 10:25 pm