Sneak Peek: Dallas Infomart's New Data Center

It's rare to get a behind-the-scenes look into a data center (those guys are all about security), but Bisnow was treated to a sneak peek at a 24k SF Tier III data center within Infomart Dallas.

Infomart Data Centers president John Sheputis gave us (and the folks who attended Bisnow’s Data Center Extravaganza last week) a look at Infomart Data Centers’ first wholesale data center (with three megawatts of turnkey capacity). The finished space at 1950 N Stemmons in Dallas is available, although talks are in the works with some prospective tenants. 

Here’s the data center space, which includes 16k SF of of two-foot raised floors for IT critical gear. It’s part of a $40M improvement plan that Infomart Data Centers has for the 1.6M SF, which includes adding four more stories to the parking garage and a new utility substation. (There are three substations now with generators throughout the facility. As part of the upgrades, the generators will be in a more centralized location.) A massive security enhancement is also part of the project. A new 330k SF building on the drawing board will house more data centers, too.

Infomart’s new data center space is directly adjacent to the new carrier-neutral Building Meet-Me Room (pictured), which should open next month. Until now, Infomart Dallas was one of the nation’s largest carrier-hotels (housing 28 unique data center suites) without a common BMMR. John says the new BMMR is designed to facilitate interconnectivity within the carrier-neutral fiber hub, enabling connections between the more than 70 network carriers and all co-location customers within the building. (Yes, that 1,115 SF space can host 70-plus carriers.) John says Infomart will waive the cross-connect fee to help in keeping connectivity costs low. Several carriers have already signed up, including global Internet exchange DE-CIX (marking its entry into the Dallas market). Local dark fiber provider InnerCity FiberNet also has signed on for the project.