Big companies are investing more in data centers than ever before. And as we heard at our Bisnow national Data Center Investment Conference & Expo (DICE) last week, it's why IT pros are now getting a cushier seat at the executive table. At the Renaissance Arlington Capital View in Crystal City, Va., Himes Associates CEO Paul Himes said data centers are now an integral part of a company's real estate strategy. "Corporate real estate guys have gone down in the pecking order, and IT guys have risen," says Paul, who adds that high-profile data breaches like the one Target just went through are also an impetus for companies to get smarter on how they store data.

With abundant power, a solid fiber network, and a highly skilled workforce, Chicago is still clearly one of the "big six" data center markets, said 451 Research's Katie Broderick. Chicago and other tier one markets (NYC, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, DC, and Dallas) are so far ahead of the pack, there isn't even really a tier two, Katie says. One big data center trend she says to watch for is big companies using private cloud technology to store data, to mitigate the risk of using public clouds, for which security is a concern.