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In Podcast 33, we continue our Data Center Fundamentals series and dive into the basics of data center infrastructure. Electrical Infrastructure (Power) Electricity travels along what’s called the power chain, which is how electricity gets from the utility provider all the way to the server inside the data center. A traditional power chain starts at the substation and eventually makes its way through a building transformer, a switching station, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), a power distribution unit (PDU) and a remote power panel (RPP) before finally arriving at the racks and servers. Data centers also utilize on-site generators to power the facility if there is an interruption in the power supply from the substation. Think of a data center like a giant laptop. The main power cord comes out of the wall (utility power) and is then transformed into usable power for the laptop (little box in the middle of your laptop cord). Finally, if any of the components of the cord fail (main power outage, transformer failure), the laptop has a battery to provide temporary power. Mechanical Infrastructure (Cooling) The amount of power a data center can consume is often limited by the amount of power consumption per rack that can be kept cool, typically referred to as density. In general, the average data center can cool at densities between 5-10 kW per rack, but some can go much higher. The most common way to cool a data center involves blowing cool air up through a raised floor, which is pictured above. In this setup, racks are placed on a raised floor with removable tiles, usually three feet above the concrete slab floor. Cool air is fed underneath the raised floor and is forced up through perforated tiles in the floor around the racks. The warmer air coming out of the servers rises up and is pulled away from the data hall, run through cool-water chillers to cool it, and fed back beneath the raised floor to cool the servers again. In certain climates, data centers can also take advantage of “free cooling” where they use the outside air to cool the servers. Instead of taking the hot air and cooling it to be used again, they allow the heat to escape and pull in the cool air from outside. This process is, as expected, much cheaper and energy efficient than operating more man made cooling infrastructure. Connectivity Infrastructure A data center’s connectivity infrastructure is also important. Without it, a data center would just be a building full of computers that can’t communicate with anyone outside the building. As data centers are the primary foundation for activities happening online, the buildings themselves need to be highly connected. Access to a variety of fiber providers connects a data center to a wide network able to provide low latency connections and reach more customers. Fiber traditionally runs into a data center through secured “vaults” and into the building’s meet-me-room or directly to a user’s servers. A meet-me-room is a location where fiber lines from different carriers can connect and exchange traffic. Redundancy Redundancy is communicated by the “need” or “N” plus the number of extra systems. The example above would be considered N+1. The data center needs 10 chillers and has one extra, thus it would be labeled as N+1. If the data center above had 10 extra generators in addition to the 10 they needed to operate, their redundancy would be double their need, or 2N. Redundancy applies to most aspects of a data center, including power supplies, generators, cooling infrastructure, and UPS systems. Some data centers have multiple power lines entering the building, or are fed from multiple substations to ensure uptime in the event a line is damaged somewhere. The same approach can be taken with fiber lines. Data centers support the internet ecosystem that more and more of the world relies on today. As such, they require robust infrastructure to ensure there’s no interruption in the services they provide.

The internet doesn’t magically float through the air from continent to continent, it travels via giant cables at the bottom of the ocean. Get an insiders perspective from Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX, a cable landing station in Wall, New Jersey You don’t often associate Wall, NJ with Europe and South America - but for NJFX, they’re more connected than you think. Gil Santaliz is CEO of NJFX, a data center and subsea cable facility in Wall, NJ that has access to cable directly connected to multiple points in Europe and South America. We got his take on the data center industry as a whole and specifically in Northern New Jersey in our latest HawkTalk video. If you’re short on time, check out a few of our quick takeaways below. Why cable landing stations are significant to the data center industry Cable landing stations represent the transmission of 99% of global internet traffic. These stations are where the subsea cables land and connect continents. NJFX specifically, located in Wall, New Jersey, is a landing station for 4 cables. These 4 cables, connecting North America to Ireland, Denmark, Norway, The UK, and Brazil. Trends in the Northern New Jersey data center market datacenterHawk has recently seen an uptick in activity, specifically from financial companies in the Northern New Jersey data center market. From Gil’s perspective, the recent changes in the culture due to Covid-19 in New York has made it difficult for people with any interest to get to the data centers in the market. As a result, activity has been spilling into adjacent markets like Northern New Jersey. Future trends in the data center industry In the US, data centers have consistently grown in areas where there are tax incentives attracting data center companies to build. Areas that have not had these types of programs in place have seen the missed opportunities of having data centers built in their regions. However, these same regions have seen a slow increase in property taxes, negating some of the benefits of the original tax incentives. This could cause states and areas with no property taxes, like New Jersey, to attract more data center activity.

In Podcast 32, we continue our Data Center Fundamentals series and answer the question “What is the cloud?” The most simplified way to describe the cloud is the use of virtual servers versus the use of physical servers. Utilizing someone else's IT infrastructure instead of having it yourself describes how people use the cloud today. If you’re short on time, check out a few of our quick takeaways below. Operating in the cloud has distinct advantages, primarily driven by the absence of physical infrastructure and the associated CAPEX. Instead of physically commissioning and installing new servers as you would with colocation, cloud servers can be deployed almost immediately and at a lower initial cost. Users also have easier access to their cloud ecosystem and can interact online instead of physically managing the servers from inside the data center. There are three use-cases of the cloud: private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. Each one has their own benefits and challenges. Private cloud Private cloud is your most controllable type of cloud deployment. Typically this is infrastructure in an area where you know where the physical servers are and they are dedicated just to you. This allows access only to the hypervisor or software layer that assigns workloads to the physical servers, but physical servers are only accessible by a single tenant. Public Cloud With public cloud you might not know exactly where your physical servers are, but you know the region they’re in. In contrast with private cloud, physical servers may be shared by multiple customers. This allows access to your data when you need it with a lower latency in that particular region. Some examples of companies who utilize public cloud include Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Softlayer. Hybrid Cloud Hybrid cloud is exactly what it sounds like. It can be a mixed use of public, private, colocation, and even some on premise IT services. Companies will typically use a hybrid cloud approach to accommodate applications with different requirements around security, latency, etc. Almost every company utilizes the cloud in some capacity. It solves problems that leasing physical servers can’t. Instead of housing a handful of racks on premise or going to colocation, now most small companies deploy their systems straight to the cloud and large companies utilize the cloud in various operations. While the cloud has taken some requirements away from colocation, it has substantially increased the demand for colocation overall. In fact, cloud adoption is one of the biggest sources of data center absorption, based on our analysis and discussion with top providers, and we expect to see that trend continue. Other things we talked about: -The benefits and challenges of the colocation side of the cloud -How COVID-19 has changed how businesses utilize the cloud -The reality of the cloud take over

Becoming the CEO of a company is no easy task, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Evoque’s new CEO, Andy Stewart tells us about the process and where he plans to take Evoque in the future. As Evoque’s new CEO, Andy Stewart gives us insight to what it has been like assuming the executive role during this strange time. He comes from a CFO position at TeirPoint from which he can be credited for helping build from its one data center to now having dozens all across the US. He discusses what has led him to this current opportunity and what his plans are for the future of Evoque. If you’re short on time, check out a few of our quick takeaways below. Hyperscale growth has been a trend we’ve seen, but Evoque has a different plan Evoque has been a retail enterprise data center provider since it’s beginning. That’s what they’ve based all of their facilities on and that’s the customer segment they will continue to pursue moving forward. Hyperscale users get a lot of attention, and in that attention are data center providers who look to land those big MW deals. Andy tells us that Evoque plans to pursue and have relationships with the hyperscale companies, but they’re going to keep the enterprise users as their main focus and double down on them for the 2nd half of 2020. Evoque & datacenterHawk both think enterprise activity will grow in the 2nd half of 2020 The enterprise sector of the data center industry was no doubt affected by COVID-19. These enterprise businesses put more focus on the safety of their employees rather than their IT infrastructure needs. As time moves forward and there is more clarity around COVID-19 and what the future will look like, you should expect to see enterprise activity pick back up and make up for the pause in the first half of 2020. The importance of connectivity The decisions of where to put your IT equipment, how to manage your network, how to manage your public cloud are all choices that need to be thought about in the same conversation. When Evoque bought their data centers from AT&T they were faced with the challenge of not being highly connected. Over the last 18 months, Evoque has focused its strategy on bringing in more high quality, globally-connected carriers into their facilities to make them more carrier-neutral and carrier dense. We also talked about… The challenge of becoming a CEO during a pandemic Evoque has data centers in Singapore and Hong Kong, which put them in a position of being able to learn from those first lockdowns and put into practice a more advanced strategy when lockdowns happened in other areas of the world. What data center providers can do to not only help their customers today but also in the future Don’t forget to check out the rest of our HawkTalk's and don’t miss out on our latest release of market data for the data center industry.

This is an episode of HawkTalk, datacenterHawk’s series of candid one on one conversations with executives and leaders in the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, please subscribe. We recently hosted Russell Cozart, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy at Cyxtera as part of our HawkTalk series. Russell started in the data center industry 15 years ago with Terramark and has spent time at Dell, VMWare, and prior to joining Cyxtera, managed GE’s cloud hosting portfolio. We covered topics like what it looked like to launch Cyxtera three years ago, the trends that are informing their go to market strategy now, and his read on the challenges enterprise IT leaders are having today. You can check out the full interview in the video above, or if you’re short on time, skim some of our top takeaways below. Focus On Focus After acquiring Century Link’s data center assets, the Cyxtera team focused on how they could make and deliver data center products and services better - and faster. Russell summarized it as the team asking themselves: how do we deliver the core value that we want to deliver with the combination of innovation, stability, and resiliency that customers had come to know with the Century Link data center asset? Part of that required a renewed focus. For example, the data center team spun their cyber security offerings off into separate companies so that they could focus more on delivering a world class experience to their enterprise customers. COVID-19 Has Accelerated, Not Changed, IT Mandates Particularly with COVID-19, the mandates placed upon CIOs and IT teams have remained the same - just accelerated. Everyone is asking how they can get to Point B faster. These leaders are looking for partners that can help them as they start to charge faster down the path of digital transformation. That trend of transformation is likely to hockey stick, especially around people using a hybrid combination of public cloud and colocation. IT Challenges Remain The Same While IT mandates remain the same, so do the challenges of the enterprise data center user. CapEx budgets are shrinking, many are supporting aging legacy infrastructure, and the drive to a hybrid IT strategy has left many with skills gaps and complex solutions. These have historically been challenges in the enterprise IT space, but now with COVID-19 the pressure is heightened. At the same time, leaders are trying to get what they need without sacrificing core tenants of delivering on their own IT strategy, like staying flexible and agile while being fast to market. This flexible and agile environment is top of mind for a provider like Cyxtera as they think about bringing products to market. How To Build Products That Resonate With Customers Maintaining a solid roadmap that leads to successful products across the globe takes work. Cyxtera has a presence across 29 markets globally and has invested heavily in developing an intimate understanding of their customers and their challenges. This enables them to then map out an architecture that will assist their customers in their journeys and ultimately ingest it into Cyxtera’s roadmap to ensure they bring valuable products to market. Looking Forward Looking forward, “the next 3-5 years are going to be game changing for the industry”, Russell says. Data center providers are on the precipice of major changes, driven primarily by the changes we’re seeing in the enterprise. The next 3-5 years are going to be game changing for the industry. Russell Cozart Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy at Cyxtera “[At Cyxtera, we’re] excited to deliver the cutting edge and make sure that’s something that resonates with customers. Their lives are changing and that’s for us and the industry as a whole make sure we’re there.”

1623 Farnam’s president Todd Cushing discusses the importance of carrier hotels and connectivity This is an episode of HawkTalk, datacenterHawk’s series of candid one on one conversations with executives and leaders in the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, you can subscribe here. On HawkTalk 49 David chats with Todd Cushing about 1623 Farnam and what it means to be a carrier hotel in today’s data center industry. They discuss the importance of connectivity as it continues to be a higher priority to businesses today, and the growth of the Omaha data center as a whole. If you’re short on time, check out a few of our quick takeaways below. The value of the carrier hotel Carrier hotels are places where connectivity lives, whether it’s regional, long haul, dark fiber, or another type, the carrier hotel is a location for it all to aggregate. Connectivity has become an important factor in the last 5-10 years as businesses have learned to create mature IT infrastructure that ultimately allows their business applications to work more efficiently. 1623 Farnam - a rich ecosystem of connectivity 1623 Farnam has become a crucial part of connectivity growth in the Midwest. The company is focused on a better network, lower latency, and faster connectivity. The growth of fiber in Omaha is a big reason why 1623 Farnam has put so much of their focus on connectivity. With the fiber infrastructure continuing to grow they see it as an opportunity to control fiber access in Omaha. The Omaha data center market and why it’s growing It’s not surprising the recent major growth has come from hyperscale users. From social media companies to major search engines, they’ve all established a presence in Omaha which is causing continual growth to the area. We also talked about… The transformation of 1623 Farnam, from a bank building to Omaha’s carrier hotel Todd’s prediction of the creation of data in the coming years The impact of COVID-19 on the data center industry Don’t forget to check out the rest of our HawkTalk's and don’t miss out on our latest release of market data for the data center industry.

In Podcast 31, David and Mike take a quick look back at the first half of 2020 and also take a look forward to discuss what the second half will look like for the data center market. This is an episode of HawkPodcast, datacenterHawk’s viewpoints on the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, you can subscribe to our newsletter on our site. 2Q has wrapped up, you can read more about it on our 2Q 2020 data center market overview, but we’ve started to look forward to the 2nd half of 2020. Below are a few of the points we discuss in the podcast above. Big demand in 2nd half of 2020 We think the 2nd half of 2020 will look similar to the 1st in that demand will continue to be pushed forward by big buyers all across the industry. The enterprise sector of the data center industry took a bigger hit from COVID-19, but we expect to see those businesses rebound with increased demand in 3Q and 4Q. Markets that will be active in 2nd half of 2020 After seeing the trends from 2Q, we think that there a few markets primed for activity in the 2nd half of 2020: Portland – Though only a handful of providers have a Portland presence, it continues to see healthy growth due to the attractive power costs and connectivity to subsea cables. Chicago – Tax incentives passed in 2019 were a factor in winning opportunities in 2Q. Given the large population and need for companies to be near their users, we expect growth to continue through the second half of 2020. Northern New Jersey – This market had a strong absorption quarter and continues to surprise in 2020 after it’s been quiet in recent years. Northern New Jersey had a lot of activity back in 2011-2013, so we think that there may have been some long term contracts in place that are now starting to expire, and naturally, some companies will be making decisions that could cause activity and movement in this market. Data center growth in Europe The European data center industry has different challenges than the US does, a main one being that the growth is happening in different countries. Even with those challenges, we expect to see hyperscale maturity in the major European markets. This growth should trickle down to the secondary European markets as well. Other things we talked about: • Our 2Q 2020 Data Center Market Overview • HawkTalk 45 with Andy Cvengros about the Chicago market • HawkPodcast 30 with our lead European analyst, Dan Scarbrough Don’t forget to check out the rest of our HawkPodcasts and don’t miss out on our latest release of market data for the data center industry.

In Podcast 30, David is joined by datacenterHawk’s lead European analyst to discuss some of the trends we’ve seen in the European data center market. Check out a few quick takeaways from our conversation below. This is an episode of HawkPodcast, datacenterHawk’s viewpoints on the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, you can subscribe here. You can also click here if you want to read our 2Q 2020 data center overview for North America and Europe. European Demand Trends Looking back at 2019, the majority of the activity in Europe was seen in a few markets, with Amsterdam receiving most of that activity. So far in 2020, the demand is more even across the five main European markets, including Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin. Growth in Frankfurt, Paris, and Dublin seems to be increasing in 2020. European Hyperscale Growth American data center providers have taken an interest in the five major European markets in the past year. This new interest has attracted more hyperscale users to look at these European markets, which has created more competition for the regional European developers and has caused them to shift their strategy. Emerging European Markets With major European markets receiving increased development interest from US data center operators, regional developers in Europe are expanding in other locations. Areas like Zurich, Warsaw, Marseille, and Barcelona are emerging markets expected to see growth based on that trend. The maturity of the subsea cable industry is also creating interest in these smaller European markets as well. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our HawkPodcasts and don’t miss out on our latest release of market data for the data center industry.

Colocation is leasing digital infrastructure from a data center operator. On this podcast, David and Mike go over the second of eight topics on data center fundamentals. We covered this in a blog series as well as an email course. Today, we answer the question “What is colocation?” and discuss some of the defining characteristics of this aspect of the data center industry. What is colocation? One option of having digital infrastructure is to build and operate your own data center, but this is mainly for large scale data center users. Colocation offers the option of leasing data center power and space from a data center provider. Colocation leases can range in size from several servers to an entire data center. Data center providers prefer to structure leases in different ways depending on user needs and lease size. Leases of 50 kilowatts (kW) and less Smaller footprints are usually all-in leases, where the user pays a set price per month with little variation. The price includes both the rental rate and power cost. Leases of 50 kW – 5 megawatts (MW) These leases are often Gross + Electric, where the user pays a set price per kW of data center infrastructure they lease per month, plus the cost of the power they use. Leases of 5 MW and higher Larger leases are often Triple Net (NNN), meaning the user pays the provider to use the space, but manages a larger portion of the operations and utilities themselves. Benefits of colocation vs on-premise data centers 1. Save on outsourcing specialized skill sets Data center operation requires a level of expertise that many companies often lack. While it’s possible for companies to develop a staff to fill this role, it’s often faster, less expensive, and more efficient to outsource the requirement. Data center providers are experts in colocation and can provide specialized solutions that best fit their customer’s needs. 2. Increased flexibility Because IT strategy can change quickly, companies value fluidity with their data center infrastructure. A company’s data center may fit their needs today, but could be inefficient later. Colocating provides flexibility and helps users avoid getting stuck in a solution that doesn’t fit their needs. 3. Cost savings from provider’s scale Data center providers are experts in designing and building data centers and often do it in a more cost-efficient manner. Large providers can also leverage their size to lower construction and power costs, and these lower costs are passed on to the user, creating lower operating expenses than owning the data center themselves. 4. Ease of customization Data center providers offer a variety of services to meet their users’ needs. They can also use their scale to attract third-party service providers, which creates a valuable ecosystem hard for single users to replicate. 5. More fiber connections A colocation data center often has stronger fiber infrastructure and easier access to cloud service providers, giving users low latency to their cloud environments and the end-customer. 6. Easier path for growth Growing your data center presence is easier with a data center provider. The relationship between a user and data center provider is typically seen as a long-term partnership. Should a company need a data center in a new market, they can often deploy infrastructure in their provider’s facility in that region. Providers like Digital Realty, Equinix, and CyrusOne report the vast majority of their customers have deployments in more than one of their data centers and many in more than one country.

T5’s Chief Operating Officer Aaron Wangenheim gives his input on Los Angeles, one of the most strategic US data center markets. This is an episode of HawkTalk, datacenterHawk’s series of candid one on one conversations with executives and leaders in the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. Please subscribe to our podcast to be notified when we release a new episode. On HawkTalk 48 David chats with Aaron Wangenheim about the large and strategic Los Angeles data center market. They discuss the history of the market, the reason for the recent growth there, and why the hyperscale user is attracted to this market. Here are a few quick takeaways from our conversation below. The Growth of the Los Angeles Data Center Market T5 Data Centers has been in the LA data center market since 2006, and they’ve lived the growth and challenges that have taken place over the years there. Naturally, the market has always circled around media and entertainment, which is still the case today. But with its high land, power, and tax prices, the providers who have chosen to enter this market are the ones who need to be there from a strategic standpoint. Why 2019 L.A. Data Center Market Growth was at an all-time high Most of the growth that we’ve seen lately in the LA market has been from the hyperscale users. This market has always aimed to serve the media and entertainment industry, and hyperscale users have recently taken an interest in servicing these industry verticals. While that growth is happening, the enterprise user still maintains a strong presence in the LA market. What Hyperscale Users Value in a Data Center Provider One of the main concerns for hyperscale users when making a decision on where they should deploy is they need to know that they can grow if they need to. When a hyperscale user picks a market and a provider to deploy their product in, they know that they’ll need more in time. Often they don’t know how much or by when they’ll need that space, but they do know that they’ll need a partner that will grow with them. We also talked about… Specifics about the T5 facility in Los Angeles How COVID-19 has changed T5’s 2020 plan Work from home trends and how company communication trends are evolving Don’t forget to check out the rest of our HawkTalk's and don’t miss out on our latest release of market data for the data center industry.