Verizon Launches Auction To Sell Data Centers (reuters.com) 39
operator_error writes: Verizon has now chosen to reverse "its strategy to expand in hosting and colocation services after it acquired data center operator Terremark Worldwide Inc in 2011 for $1.4 billion", and has "started a process to sell its data center assets". The so-called 'colocation' portfolio up for sale includes 48 data centers, and generates annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of around $275 million. The enterprise telecommunications industry has had to adapt in recent years to corporate customers seeking more sophisticated and cheaper offerings to manage their data. Verizon joins a host of its rivals in telecommunications who are shedding their data centers.
I bid $1 (Score:2)
I bid $1
Re:They should put it on ebay (Score:5, Informative)
Data centers suffer from very rapid capital depreciation. Kryder's Law [pcmag.com] means your storage hardware loses half its value every 13 months. It is a very competitive business, and only large scale automated data centers can be competitive. This is the start of the shake out, not the end. You will soon see more companies exit the business.
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Verizon is also shedding land lines...
The problem with "edge" data centers is you need nearly the same operating staff as you do for a large "core" facility, and it is hard to get the same efficiencies. My business model from 2005 is about to take off though, unfortunately without me being able to capitalize on it.
Re: They should put it on ebay (Score:2)
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Containerized non field-serviceable data centers that operate in clusters of 4-6 nodes. At the time it would go to 500kW per node; not sure what is economically viable today though. Swap nodes every 30 months and replace bad parts in a service center.
It was innovative but impractical in 2005... today not so much (on both counts).
spindles are a small % of enterprise storage (Score:2)
Obviously high- end networking hardware DOES need to be replaced pretty often, perhaps every 5 years or so.
The claim that an enterprise storage system loses half its value in a year because drives get bigger is a bit silly, though. Several years ago I bought storage hardware for our datacenter. It was filled with 400GB drives. The same sleds now hold 4TB drives, connected to the same expanders, the same RAID cards, and the same storage logic. The actual hard drives are less than half of the cost of the to
LARGE data centers = cloud infrastructure (Score:2)
Data centers suffer from very rapid capital depreciation. Kryder's Law [pcmag.com] means your storage hardware loses half its value every 13 months. It is a very competitive business, and only large scale automated data centers can be competitive. This is the start of the shake out, not the end. You will soon see more companies exit the business.
Until someone tells them data centers = cloud infrastructure. Seriously, if they want to be a cloud provider then they need the biggest most massive and efficient data centers. Or are we talking purely about small and medium data centers and colocs?
Sure, co-location is far too expensive relative to provisioning on-demand cloud infrastructure to justify for small and medium size businesses. And large businesses can set up their own data centers in-house. I could see some medium to large businesses buyin
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Data centers suffer from very rapid capital depreciation. Kryder's Law [pcmag.com] means your storage hardware
A datacenter is a physical facility, which provides floor space, power, heating/cooling, fire suppression, backup power generation, security, etc.
Kryder's Law is talking about particular types of equipment which is placed INTO a datacenter.
A lot of large companies are realizing that it's cheaper to lease/rent space from a company which specializes in the actual datacenter itself, than it is to try and do it all on their own. It also gives them the flexibility to move their gear to other facilities in respon
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Remotely locating your servers, requires several ultra high speed internet connections per office space.
Otherwise you risk major amounts of downtime. Meanwhile local hosted servers can increase up-time, and increase available bandwidth on the cheap(wires in walls).
The price differential between cheap lower end business grade Inet connections, and high end fiber connections can be several thousand dollars a month or more. Also tack in the cost of very high end routers supporting large amounts of VPN traff
Re: I would expect they still own the fibre (Score:1)
Most datacenters have a large number of carriers with connectivity into them, regardless of who owns them.
US data centers (Score:3)
Verizon is not a wonderful company (Score:4, Insightful)
They bought spectrum which is the property of the people, agreeing to use it fairly. Yet they prohibit devices on their net and require them to go through long "testing" processes that can take up to a year - on devices that have two year shelf lives. They are also against net neutrality.
I figure if it is bad for Verizon, it is good for the public in general.
good (Score:1)
This is a sign they plan on taking net neutrality seriously... at least for now.
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This is a sign they plan on taking net neutrality seriously... at least for now.
How did you achieve this "leap of logic" may I ask?
Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't be too surprised if Microsoft bought some, gutted them, and fitted them with new racks of up-to-date gear. Right now MS is desperately in need of physical server space because their Azure stuff is actually (surprisingly) getting a lot of traction.
They literally cannot build datacenters fast enough so they've taken to leasing buildings and then doing the gut/harden/refurbish thing to them, turning them into colos and full-fledged DCs.
An existing DC would be a prime candidate for this as it's already a DC and would only need modern racks and servers. Cooling, power, and physical security are already there and that's what takes the longest to complete. Rack installation, on the other hand, can be done very quickly.
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Aren't all the Aszure data centers just Butler Buildings with shipping container compute nodes stacked inside? I would doubt they can make a traditional data center work economically for the server capaicty they are deploying.
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Aren't all the Aszure data centers just Butler Buildings with shipping container compute nodes stacked inside? I would doubt they can make a traditional data center work economically for the server capaicty they are deploying.
Some are, some aren't. I think the shipping container thing is an older iteration (although still in use and probably still being built). They're made for unimproved areas, basically scrape a field flat, put up walls, dump the containers, then hook 'em up and turn 'em on. Guards patrol the perimeter and in between the rows of shipping containers. Lots of physical security.
They keep going through all sorts of different designs...classic colo buildings, "spine" layouts with a power/water "backbone", shipping
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Interesting, thanks. I know they have a lot of traditional facilities that continue to grow, but I thought the economics of a pre-populated, configured, and tested node with xx,xxx servers was hard to beat. The 4-pack racks might have some simplification in terms of a "universal" standard module, but at the scale they are deploying them...wow.
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Interesting, thanks. I know they have a lot of traditional facilities that continue to grow, but I thought the economics of a pre-populated, configured, and tested node with xx,xxx servers was hard to beat. The 4-pack racks might have some simplification in terms of a "universal" standard module, but at the scale they are deploying them...wow.
I've been kind of taken aback at how much growth they're experiencing with the whole Azure thing, it's way more popular than I ever would have imagined.
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These are tenanted data centers, with customers on long-term contracts. It would take up to 3 years for contracts to expire before they could fully repurpose these facilities.
Then they probably won't be interested. Three years is way too long for them to wait. They need stuff yesterday, basically.
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We have cages in two different Verizon/Teramark datacenters. In both, roughly half the physical space is Verizon's own internal network operations, the rest is leased out by sq ft and electrical load needs to others. I assumed they built these centers, realized they don't need all of the space for themselves and decided to rent out the rest, maybe that was not the case, who knows.
Out of one bed, into another. (Score:2)