The Direction of Dallas Data Centers

QTS Realty Trust opened a 700k SF Dallas data center last fall, and it's not done. Last month, the firm acquired Virginia-based co-location, cloud and managed services provider Carpathia Hosting for $326M. We’re excited to learn what's next, and the place to do it is our Dallas Data Center Extravaganza at the Infomart Dallas (1950 N Stemmons) on Wednesday (7:30am start).

Here's event panelist QTS director of enterprise sales for the Central US Stephen Johnston (with his girlfriend, Melissa, at the famed Champagne winery Chandon—makers of Moët and Chandon—in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia). He tells us the acquisition takes QTS from 8% cloud and managed services to that being 27% of the company’s annual income. The move adds 14 more data centers, including five international. The 230 new customers brings QTS to more than 1,000.

Carpathia is a hybrid cloud services and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider. Stephen says QTS has usually grown organically—acquiring and converting brownfield infrastructure-rich properties that are overbuilt structurally for a data center. For example, the QTS Dallas campus is a former semiconductor facility. QTS also purchased a 1.3M SF semiconductor facility in Richmond, VA, and recently purchased the former Chicago Sun-Times printing press building in downtown Chicago. Stephen is seeing customers buying multiple products to allow for expansion, cloud and disaster recovery as service modules.

Corgan principal Jim Cober (another event panelist, pictured at Machu Pichu) says he’s seeing growth in third-party data centers encompassing co-location, wholesale and resale. More companies are moving toward leasing space; in the past five years, he’s seen more of Corgan’s projects focused on third-party providers and developers than for the enterprise data centers. The demand stems from quicker and less expensive development of data halls.

Stream Data Centers managing director Anthony Bolner (moderator at our event) tells us Stream is developing private data centers in new greenfield projects in The Woodlands—outside Houston and in San Antonio’s Westover hills, as well as one in Minneapolis. Those three will join Stream’s two existing facilities in Denver and at 1100 Empire Central Place in Dallas, Anthony tells us.

Anthony says corporate users are looking to eliminate risk; that can mean being in a safe location with redundant infrastructure in a cost-effective data center. 

It's not too late to register for Bisnow’s Dallas Data Center Extravaganza at the Infomart Dallas (1950 N Stemmons) on Wednesday (7:30am). Join us!