Data Center Site Locations are cheap, so easy to pick another one, example Verizon cancels Buffalo project

Data Center Site selection is not open and transparent.  It is purposely obscure how decisions are made and the criteria used to make decisions.  What few understand is given how cheap the land is for a location vs. the data center construction cost, IT equipment, and OPEX a site is rarely so valuable that a company doesn't have alternative sites they can choose from.

Rich Miller at DataCenterKnowledge asks a good question whether Verizon's acquisition of Terremark or local lawsuits in Buffalo cancelled the Verizon project in Buffalo.

Did Terremark Deal Scuttle New Verizon Projects?

March 21st, 2011 : Rich Miller

The NAP of the Capital Region in Culpeper, Virginia is among the data center assets Verizon expects to acquire once it closes its acquisition of Terremark.

There’s plenty of finger-pointing going on among local officials in the Buffalo area following Thursday’s announcement that Verizon will not proceed with plans to build a proposed 900,000 square foot data center project in Somerset, N.Y. Some blamed delays in land acquisition, but there was also anger about the role played by a lawsuitfrom local resident Mary Ann Rizzo, who felt a proper environmental review was not conducted for the project.

What is going on is the smart companies are picking sites with options to build with good cancellation terms.  Why lock yourself into a site when the land cost is 2% or less of the construction cost and less than 1% of the overall TCO.

There are also many data center projects that have been put on hold by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and many others.

The one person who is happy is Mary Ann Rizzo who filed the lawsuit, but she also made many enemies now that the Verizon project is cancelled.

Senator blames woman for Verizon departure

Updated: Friday, 18 Mar 2011, 7:36 AM EDT
Published : Thursday, 17 Mar 2011, 10:16 PM EDT

SOMERSET, N.Y. (WIVB) - Verizon has hung up on a multi-billion dollar data center in Somerset. State Senator George Maziarz blames a legal challenge from a nearby landowner.

Art Giacalone is cautiously celebrating a victory.

"It's hard to breathe a huge sigh of relief because I frankly have not trusted much of what they've said for months now," said Giacalone.

Many blame his client, Mary Ann Rizzo, for Verizon pulling the plug on plans to build a $4 billion data center on farmland in the town of Somerset. Rizzo owns 116 acres across the road from the land Verizon was eyeing.

Senator George Maziarz said, "It just shows you how one person who owns property across the street, doesn't even live on the property, but just owns property across the street has killed this up to $5 billion project."

New Data Center Construction in Pennsylvania?

A Data Center expert has shared his opinion that Pennsylvania is a great location to build a data center, but for some reason no one wants to build there.  Data Center Dynamics covers a possible change with Bethlehem, PA giving permit approval.

City green-lights 300,000-sq-ft Pennsylvania build

Facility to be built for data center services firm

Published 11th February, 2011 by Yevgeniy Sverdlik

Bethlehem Pennsylvania Main St

This week a US real-estate developer received an approval from local planning authorities to build a 300,000-sq-ft data center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The city’s planning commission approved a preliminary site design on Thursday, according to a WFMZ report.

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Worldwide Interexchange Exchange Points, Peering Points for Data Centers WW

As part of green data center strategy you look for where to put data centers for renewable energy sources, but you can run into issues with the locations can many times not be the ideal locations for data center connectivity.  All the big players have a large list of peering sites at Internet Exchange Points to improve their cost and performance of delivery.

Here is a list of Worldwide Internet Exchange Points that will help give you an idea of where the exchanges are.  I've included only the last entries from UK on to show you.

UK Scotland, Edinburgh WorldIX Internet Exchange WorldIX
UK United Kingdom, London London Internet Exchange LINX
UK United Kingdom, London London Internet Providers Exchange LIPEX
UK United Kingdom, London London Network Access Point LoNAP
UK United Kingdom, London/other PacketExchange ---
UK United Kingdom, Manchester Manchester Network Access Point MaNAP
US Hawaii, Honolulu Hawaii Internet Exchange HIX
US United States, Albuquerque New Mexico Internet Exchange NMIX
US United States, Billings Yellowstone Regional Internet Exchange YRIX
US United States, Boston/other Boston Metropolitan Exchange Point BMXP
US United States, Champaign The Science, Technology, And Research Transit Access Point STAR TAP
US United States, Chicago Chicago Ameritech NAP ---
US United States, Columbus Columbus Internet Exchange CMH-IX
US United States, Los Angeles Los Angeles International Internet Exchange LAIIX
US United States, Los Angeles One Wilshire Any2 Neutral Internet and VoIP Exchange Any2
US United States, Medford Southern Oregon Access Exchange SOAX
US United States, Miami/other TerreMark NAP of the Americas TerreNAP
US United States, New York New York International Internet Exchange NYIIX
US United States, New York The Big Apple Peering Exchange BIG APE
US United States, New York/other Equinix Internet Business Exchange IBX
US United States, Palo Alto/other Switch and Data Neutral Internet Exchange Point PAIX
US United States, Philadelphia MAGPI Research and Educational Internet Exchange MAGPI
US United States, Philadelphia Philadelphia Internet Exchange PHILAIX
US United States, Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Internet Exchange PITX
US United States, Portland Northwest Access Exchange NWAX
US United States, San Diego San Diego Network Access Point SD-NAP
US United States, Seattle Seattle Internet Exchange SIX
US United States, Utah Utah REP Internet Exchange Point Utah REP
US United States, major cities Verizon MAE Services & Facilities MAE
VN Vietnam, Hanoi Vietnam Internet Exchange VNIX
ZA South Africa, Grahamstown Grahamstown Internet Exchange GINX
ZA South Africa, Johannesburg Johannesburg Internet Exchange JINX

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Social Networking gives clues to data center location

Data Center site selection is part art and science.  There are many Facebook partners looking for peering relationships with Facebook data centers.  600 million users is an appealing number.  A graphic shows the users in an interesting display.

image

Here is background on the data to create the graph.

After a few minutes of rendering, the new plot appeared, and I was a bit taken aback by what I saw. The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn't represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.

Later I replaced the lines with great circle arcs, which are the shortest routes between two points on the Earth. Because the Earth is a sphere, these are often not straight lines on the projection.

When I shared the image with others within Facebook, it resonated with many people. It's not just a pretty picture, it's a reaffirmation of the impact we have in connecting people, even across oceans and borders.

Think about all the data Facebook has for its site selection process.  Europe and Asia look like obvious next places.

Note as GigaOm points out there are some dark spots in the Facebook network.

There are gaps in the data, of course, with dark spots in China and other countries that block the social network (or have large competitors of their own, as Russia does with VKontakte), but the result is quite an amazing picture of a connected world. If that’s what an intern at Facebook can come up with, imagine what else would be possible with that data.

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What's in Dell's move to Quincy, WA? Competing with IBM and HP?

Wenatchee World has the story on Dell coming to Quincy, WA for a data center.

Secret's out? Dell headed here

Blog: Everyday Business

    By Mike Irwin

    November 2, 2010

    Dell, the world's third-largest computer company, has purchased property in Quincy that could become the site of the Columbia Basin town's newest data center, the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reported this morning.
    Underway for months, the top-secret purchase — known as Project Roosevelt — would add the computer manufacturer to Quincy's list of tech industry standouts, such as Microsoft and Yahoo.

    DataCenterKnowledge has more details.

    Officials with the Port of Quincy have confirmed that the deal is related to Project Roosevelt, the code name for a data center that could include grow to 250,000 square feet over time. The initial specifications call for 7 megawatts of power, ramping up to 30 megawatts over time. The search also considered sites in Douglas County.

    Why is Dell building 7 MW with growth for 25 MW?  Perot systems is the competitor of HP/EDS and IBM services. Perot systems doesn't have the data center inventory that HP and IBM has.

    Converged infrastructure is a hot topic, and it is much easier to sell a converged infrastructure solution when you have the data center contract.  The Dell data center is most likely a cost effective solution for hosting, gives a low carbon data center alternative, and becomes a showcase for Dell/Perot.

    Dell announced today the acquisition of Cloud Solution SaaS company Boomi.

    Dell to Acquire Boomi; Adds Industry’s No. 1 Integration Cloud™ Solution to SaaS Capabilities

    Date : 11/2/2010

    Round Rock, Texas

    Dell today announced it has agreed to acquire Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) integration leader Boomi to help businesses reap the full value of cloud computing. Powered by its revolutionary AtomSphere technology, Boomi offers the industry’s only pure SaaS application integration platform that takes the cost and complexity out of integrating applications by allowing easy transfer of data between cloud-based and on-premise applications with no appliances, no software and no coding required.

     

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