GigaOM – Top 5 places to build a new Data Center

Future data center expansion will be happening in developing markets like China, Brazil and Argentina, but such locations may not meet the requirements of data centers today and the requirements that will be necessary in the future. In fact, these five regions may not be the most obvious places to build a data center, but they might save your company a lot of expense.

Data center requirements have changed over the last 10-15 years. A decade or two ago, the two top criteria to consider when choosing a location were network accessibility and access to skilled talent. Fiber networks that connect data centers to the rest of the world were concentrated around metropolitan areas like New York City and San Francisco, but that is no longer the case. Sure, there will always be distance and latency concerns to consider, but the proliferation of high-speed network infrastructure means it is no longer the driving factor it once was. Additionally, data center talent was also limited to where the data centers were. That still holds true, except data centers have spread considerably and so has the skills base. In addition, remote monitoring and management solutions now make it possible for IT administrators to do most of their data center work remotely.

More of the GigaOM article from Jim Latimer

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.