The Real Winner In The Data Wars Isn't Facebook
People’s obsession with all things data (think wearable tech, Facebook updates and email) makes a lot of companies rich. But while companies come and go, one thing is constant: a boom for data centers. This week, nearly 400 technology and real estate types gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons for Bisnow’s national Data Center Investment Expo (DICE).
451 Research analyst Kelly Morgan says Northern Virginia recently pulled ahead of New York and New Jersey for most square footage of operational data center space in North America. (Big applause from the crowd.) Half of NoVa’s square footage is in Ashburn, and 300k SF is added annually. The vast amount of data center space is being taken up by enterprises, and she adds that enterprise data centers are not being replaced by colocation facilities. At least half of them have built a data center in the past three years.
QTS Data Centers sales EVP Tag Greason and RagingWire Data Centers chief revenue officer Douglas Adams (holding the mic). One big driver of demand is big data activities and consumers’ insatiable appetite for high-bandwidth content. Tag says there’s also a shrinking of enterprise data centers and more companies are turning over their needs to data center providers.
Consumers aren’t the only ones excited about the possibility of the Internet of Things. Data center operators predict huge demand for their service. EdgeConnex CEO Randy Brouckman says the challenge is making sure data centers get the right infrastructure to deal with all the data points. He adds that there needs to be a solution across the entire spectrum, from cloud to being able to quickly analyze the big data.
Fancy amenities aren't just for posh office buildings. Some data centers are even adding climbing walls and lounge areas. Former Softlayer CEO and former IBM cloud innovation GM Lance Crosby says the data center has to be able to accommodate customers who may need to bring in a huge number of servers in one day, so the dock area is important. (A 400k SF data center shouldn’t have one dock bay.) Compass Datacenters CEO Chris Crosby says clients are asking about how flexible the provider can be over the 30 or so years the company will be in the space.
Another data center trend is dark fiber. (No, it has nothing to do with eating Cocoa Puffs vs. Corn Pops.) More data center providers and enterprise customers are requesting this type of fiber optic cable for their networks, says SummitIG account director Gary James. He says firms want to manage their own core infrastructure to gain access to the cloud. It’s essential to their business and to their customers’ ability to connect to them. The demand has extended from one strand of dark fiber to bundles of dark fiber.
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