Will Silicon Valley Run Out of Data Center Space? 142
1sockchuck writes "With capital scarce, data center developers are prioritizing projects in northern Virginia, where the Obama stimulus plan and federal shift to cloud computing are likely to boost data center demand from government agencies. This is forcing them to delay or scale back large projects in Santa Clara, setting the stage for a supply/demand imbalance in Silicon Valley, particularly for large space requirements. One potential mitigating factor: some currently occupied data center space could become available through the failure of venture-backed startups."
Not even possible (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's demand, someone will supply it. If the demand is for unrealistically cheap service, then that's not real demand.
Pure BS! (Score:1, Insightful)
There was a slashdot article just recently on how easy it is to move your cloud servers to a low-tax, business-friendly jurisdiction.
Your cloud services are also easily moved to a LOW COST location.
Sheesh. Think a little.
Who cares where the data center is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just put in a fat pipe to the data center & connect it to the backbone. Data centers are (by design) a commodity, and as such will be outsourced to where it makes sense.
Re:I say DIG (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it even matter where the data center is physically located. I'd say go where the climate is such that it requires the lowest expense on cooling or heating, and where the land, hookers and beer are cheapest.
Re:Not even possible (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's demand, someone will supply it eventually. If the demand is for unrealistically cheap service, then that's not real demand.
Doesn't mean it will happen soon, or that a lot of businesses aren't going to suffer until the imbalance is addressed.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Insightful)
This article seems to list everything a corporation should consider: [techtarget.com]
Price of power
Networking infrastructure
Accessibility
Talent pool
Local incentives
Re:Rust Belt (Score:2, Insightful)
While i would personally love to see a place like WY, or the rust belt get a bunch of data centers, there are some issues that would need to be addressed that realistically leave the northeast and west coast the only major viable locations for most data centers. Firstly, the issue of infrastructure rears its head in much of the midwest, WY, MT and the like, are likely lacking sufficient power supply and readily available bandwidth to realistically facilitate large amounts of data centers. While it is not necessarily outrageous to supply these services here, it does take time, years to build power plants and run fiber trunks. Secondly, data centers like to be close to their clients, or actually clients like to be close to their data centers, and its not just for the paranoid CEO who is afraid of his 1's and 0's being counted, for example, many financial institutions rely on low TTL numbers for precision stock market transactions, which is why there is a large number of data centers in northern NJ, directly across the Hudson from the stock exchange. The physical distance of a corporations data could make it less profitable. If distance were of no concern Australia would probably be the best place for data centers. there is also the factor of talent pool. personally i'd love to live in WY, but not many engineers i know would agree, and even in a tough economy asking your workforce to uproot and move to what they may feel is barren-wasteland ville-tucky will probably yield a lot of attrition (they didnt name the badlands in WY "the badlands" because of the convenient shopping.).
i'm sure theres excellent rebuttals of these points, its not really something i've researched but off the top of my head, thats what i think. correct me where i'm wrong.
Re:Not even possible (Score:2, Insightful)
If the demand is for unrealistically cheap service, then that's not real demand.
Yes, it is. You can't know what's 'unrealistically cheap' unless you've pushed the envelope and actually negotiated for a lower price. In a down economy, and with enough buying power looking for low prices, you might even be able to wrangle an unprecedented discount.
Re:I say DIG (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it does. If you've ever tried either to install someplace out of the way where tools and replacement parts are difficult to obtain, or where the data center staff are cage monkeys who've never actually read their own contract and how they're supposed ot have a console and keyboard available within 20 minutes of a phone call plugged into the correct server because you "economized" by paying for a "higher service level" and didn't buy remote KVM's or power controllers, then you know exactly what I've encountered a dozen times in the last decade. Having to leave my desk, drive to a facility in another state or country, and show them how it's done.
Re:No more startups (Score:1, Insightful)
We're dooooomed!
Yeah, like it wasn't the land of opportunity in the 50s, when the upper bracket income tax percent was much higher and the United States decended into Soviet-like poverty. Oh wait..
Re:Well, no.... (Score:3, Insightful)
So fix Medicare and leave the rest of the health care system alone then.
The comprehensive plans are basically a huge organizational clusterfuck aimed at subsidizing Medicare using the taxes and premiums of healthy people, rationing care for everyone so you can ration it for Medicare recipients too, and forcing doctors and patients into low value/low physician-pay outcomes by denying all other choices. Some of us aren't willing to have our life-and-death choices subject to government bureaucratic decision trees. But none of the plans will ultimately allow us to opt out and pay for care in cash (a favorable alternative to dying or suffering on a waiting list in many cases) because that option will destroy the leverage that governments have to force physicians to work for below-market reimbursements. (Note how no one asks malpractice lawyers to work for below-market rates. Hmm. I wonder which party those lawyers give money to?)
My health-care costs aren't going up 8% per year. I'm not spending too much of my GDP on health care, because I don't have a GDP; I'm a person. The government can fuck off when it comes to my health care. And this is a matter of life and death for me and everyone else who uses health care. It's not like people are just going to acquiesce. This conflict on health care will continue to escalate and intensify until the ruling class backs down.
Re:Well, no.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of young people think they can just pay for their medical costs in cash. I have bad news, your twenties and thirties are not the expensive parts of your life in terms of medical care.
-This conflict on health care will continue to escalate and intensify until the ruling class backs down.
The ruling class are the people who own the insurance companies and such, they're not actually the friend of the working man, they just want your money.
It isn't the square footage.... (Score:3, Insightful)
....It's the watts.
You can brag about density all you want, but if you can't deliver the needed wattage to the racks AND the HVAC tonnage to carry away the dissipated heat, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.