Ask for a Data Center

Central Washington state gets one more data center - from Ask.com. Ask.com will build a data center in Moses Lake.

One prominent data center in the Moses Lake area is Titan I LLC. The Titan building was formerly a missile control center for NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, according to the data center's Web site. The Titan complex sits on more than 6 acres and is half a mile from the Grant County International Airport. [It is owned by 2 former Microsoft boys - Bob Caldwell and John Agnew].

In recent months, Microsoft Corp. of Redmond and Yahoo! Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., have begun building large data centers in Quincy, which, like Moses Lake, is located in rural Grant County. [quotes from Biz Journals' article].

Google is building its DC in Oregon. Intuit is planning a future DC in the Quincy area.

Meanwhile, GI Partners is buying up hosting businesses like Telx and EV1. [more here from Netcraft]. What does all this mean for Telx, Switch&Data, Equinix, and Digital Realty Trust?

FYI, largest hosting companies ranked here.

More importantly, what does the smaller, local player in the DC game do? As soon as Google et al open their data centers, space will open up in the big ones - and prices will drop. The average rack rate is $900 for a full-rack, power is usually extra, as is bandwidth.

One strategy is to let the big guys have collocation - and you just sell dedicated boxes and managed services. Collocation means people in your space - and potential problems. Dedicated boxes and Managed boxes means Control - of th eequipment, space and customer.