Data Center Locations: North America
Silicon Valley
It may come at a price, but play your cards right, according to Jon Shank and Les Pelio of Pelio and Associates, and Silicon Valley could provide the right combination for data center success
that maximize effi ciencies and increase speed- to-market. Silicon Valley Real estate prices, however, are relatively higher compared to other parts of the US. The data center industry is maturing, and property owners understand the value associated with a property that has good proximity to power and fi ber, therefore data center users should avoid deploying infrastructure on valuable real estate before real requirements are properly identifi ed.
Silicon Valley – worth the cost. Image courtesy of Google
In the last ten years many data center operators and users have established their initial data center footprint in Silicon Valley. And as these numbers have grown, a tipping point towards a hub-and-spoke strategy has
led these
companies to maintain a data center presence here while locating larger data centers in remote locations, where real estate prices and power rates might be lower.
In recent years this has meant speed-to-market, reliability, cost-competitiveness and energy effi ciency have become increasingly important characteristics of the new “spoke” strategy in Silicon Valley. To adequately address these characteristics, a data center must provide power, cooling and connectivity in a robust and fl exible way and also employ strategies to reduce total cost of ownership.
Silicon Valley Power (SVP) and Pacifi c Gas & Electric (PG&E) are two major power providers serving data centers in Silicon Valley. SVP serves Santa Clara, where it provides the best combination of price and reliability in the State of California.
The local electrical architecture in Silicon Valley is accessible and reliable, and the price-per- kWh is somewhat lower in SVP territory, which heavily infl uences total cost of ownership. New substations are being built which indicates SVP’s commitment to providing power for data centers well into the future. SVP also allows for electrical usage to be separately metered so
that data center users only pay for the power consumed.
The climate of Silicon Valley allows for the abundant use of free-air cooling, evaporative cooling and the mixture of the two. The supply-water temperature from an evaporative cooler in Silicon Valley is approximately 70 degrees F for most of the year. Chillers can be added if lower supply-water temperatures are required. Additionally, the City of Santa Clara and the City of San Jose have teamed up to make reclaimed water available to certain data centers, creating bett er economics and an overall green solution.
Silicon Valley is home to technology giants such as Cisco and Google as well as start-ups fueled by its vibrant venture capital community.
This forward-thinking technology community demands low-latency connections as well as access to multiple telecommunications providers. As a result, Silicon Valley is fi ber- rich, with many points-of presence where Internet traffi c is exchanged and local loop connections made.
Keeping tab of costs
The City of Santa Clara understands the importance of data centers and will move permitt ing process along as quickly as possible. The construction and engineering industry here is also quite capable of designing and delivering complex data center arrangements
In a leasing environment users should not lease more critical load than is actually required at any particular time. Data center users should consider just-in-time modular data center strategies when locating in Silicon Valley to maximize their compute-per-square foot. Containers and racks can come pre-packaged with servers so that data center users can utilize their critical load on day one and only pay for data center infrastructure actually needed required at that particular moment. The result can be a solution that allows IT managers and facility managers to eff ectively and effi ciently meet uncertain, yet increasing, infrastructure demands while lowering costs.
Not all data center applications need the same levels of redundancy. A stratifi ed data center that can deliver N, N+1 and 2N solutions all in the same building allows data center users to right-size their data center so each application has the proper amount of redundancy.
The data center industry in Silicon Valley evolves quickly, and it improves your bott om line if you only pay for the redundant infrastructure that you actually need and have a fl exible architecture capable of taking advantage of increasingly effi cient data center technology.
The property tax basis increases with the installation of data center tenant improvements that are affi xed to the building. A modular strategy could allow users to fi nance various portions of the data center that are not easily fi nanceable in the traditional data center environment. The data center components become personal property as opposed to real property, which could provide tax benefi ts for data center users.
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