Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016

Time	Event
1:00p	The Catalog-Driven Data Center Patrick Buech is Head of Business Line Service Management at FNT Software. Both operators of multi-tenant data centers and colocation providers face the challenge of sustaining success and remaining relevant in a highly competitive environment with dynamic product portfolios. The commoditization of space and power is driving them to differentiate through value-added services to not only gain new customers but to also increase customer retention. There is, in fact, an increasing market demand to become a full-service provider. This would entail providing a wide range of services from colocation – to managed hosting – to public, private, and hybrid cloud services. During his presentation on top 10 technology trends and their impact on IT and operations at this year’s Gartner ITxpo in Barcelona, Gartner analyst David J. Cappuccio recommended: “Change the perception of the data center to a provider that delivers services – not just iron”. Here, we see a product-oriented approach overtake the traditional project-focused perspective. Treating every service like an individual project is a practice that is becoming a relic of the past. As a result the product catalog becomes the service provider’s most valuable marketing asset while the service catalog showcases the actual services delivered to the customer. Where the Value Relies On Value no longer relies on location, data centers, technologies, or the identity of the service provider. On the user end of things, value lies in the service quality and associated delivery parameters. The product catalog gains more prominence in an era of ever-increasing digitization, as it serves to communicate and establish value to the end-user. Product catalogs help determine the types of products a service provider can sell. It acts as a menu – displaying types of products, specific variants, performance parameters, contractual terms, and pricing. Product catalogs also allow providers to quickly define new products, adjust existing ones, and respond to new offerings from competitors. Service Design and Industrialization During the age of industrialization, we saw how car manufactures perfected building extensive amounts of configurable cars in a highly standardized manner. There is a plan and defined process on how to create and deliver the ordered product based on the features that the end-user desires. So why can’t we adapt this approach to providing colocation services? Here, an important question is raised: How does a service provider define a flexible catalog where products can be offered with efficient and fast delivery once a customer actually chooses their desired variant? To accomplish this, proper methodology for service design is mandatory. This will require adopting four industrial production principles: Standardization Modularization Variant management Variable vertical integration Consider these the four pillars that your product catalog should adhere to. Standardization will create predictability and ease of maintenance. Modularization permits flexibility and organization. Variant management will ensure that your products can be offered in pre-defined variants to provide customers the possibility to tailor the service to their needs without influencing service delivery in a negative manner. Lastly, variable vertical integration will allow efficiency for production time and associated costs. Such consistent methodology affords predictability to the service provider. This is even more important when combining classic IT practices with telecommunication services and DCIM solutions. The service provider becomes the service broker by assembling a catalog and combining both internal and external resources. Combine these factors together and you will be able to create a catalog of service offerings (products) which can be delivered and produced in adherence to industrial production principles. This is possible because every designed product includes not only the parameters and variants but also all background technical information to assist in realizing the fulfillment of the service most efficiently. The service design needs to actually link the value proposition with the infrastructure underneath. As a result the product catalog moves center stage and drives the processes behind. In the telecommunication industry these concepts embody what is called a catalog-driven approach. Track Returns on Investment It’s no secret that creating and implementing a successful product catalog will also require a great investment of time and resources. It will be imperative to quantify the return on such an investment. The only way to tell whether or not the current catalog is yielding desired results is to measure it. I’ve found that the best way to calculate the return on investment (ROI) in this case is to measure it by these three main factors: Reduction of cost via standardization and consolidation of products in a central catalogue (common reduction would be between 10 and 30%). Reduction in service delivery time. Reduction in time-to-market for new products. The Paradigm Shift Put simply, to become a real service provider, both multi-tenant data center operators and colocation providers need to emphasize service design, prioritize catalog management, and embrace the paradigm shift from an outdated, project-oriented approach to one that is product-oriented. Only then the provider becomes the service broker that can use an optimized product catalog to an advantage. This can be achieved and sustained through using consistent methodology. As a result, data centers and colocation providers will deliver high quality, value-added services – not just the infrastructure. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library.   (Comment on this)
3:18p	DCK Exclusive: TierPoint CEO Jerry Kent Talks Strategy St. Louis Missouri-based TierPoint is a private-equity backed colocation, hybrid cloud and managed services provider focused on serving enterprise customers in US secondary markets. TierPoint has continued to execute on an acquisition and organic growth strategy for more than a decade. The company now employs 850-plus associates who deliver services around the clock to over 5,000 customers nationwide. In the past 12 months, the pace of acquisitions reached a crescendo with the $575 million acquisition of Windstream Hosted Solutions, and the Q1 2016 purchase of Midwest data center provider Cosentry, for an undisclosed sum. In December 2015, TierPoint entered the Chicago market to service an existing client with the acquisition of AlteredScale. Read more: How TierPoint Quietly Built a Data Center Empire in Secondary Markets In September, the company announced an investment of $20 million to develop a 16,000 square foot initial phase of a planned 90,000 square foot campus in Allen, Texas, to be built by Compass Data Centers. TierPoint has invested a total of $45 million this year in data center expansion projects, including an announcement last week of a $13 million expansion of its Baltimore and Marlborough (Boston Metro West) data centers. National Footprint TierPoint now operates a fleet of 39 data centers, totaling over 650,000 square feet, located in 20 US markets, spread across 18 states. Based on last quarter’s annualized run-rate, TierPoint now generates $370 million of revenue per year according to company management. Source: TierPoint The TierPoint data centers are connected by a 10G national network incorporating a mix of privately owned and leased dark fiber, in addition to Tier 1 Carrier Wave services. DCK Interview – CEO Jerry Kent Chairman and CEO Jerry Kent brings decades of experience in growing technology businesses to TierPoint. Kent founded Charter Communications in 1993, and served as CEO through its successful IPO, stepping down in 2001. Source: TierPoint – CEO Jerry Kent He also serves as CEO of Cequel III, a technology management company which he co-founded in 2002. The Cequel III team has a history of successfully building, and ultimately selling large scale wireless tower and cable television enterprises. Read more: Cequel Data Centers Acquires TierPoint The secret sauce for TierPoint appears to be the ability to identify and integrate strategic acquisitions which are a good fit for growing the company. In addition to buying quality data center assets to expand the TierPoint geographic footprint, acquisitions are often targeted because they can add new products, and/or upgrade the managed services suite TierPoint offers. Kent told Data Center Knowledge that since March, new acquisitions have taken a back seat. He has mainly been focused internally on integration efforts, including the block and tackle work of getting the entire company on the same page for CRM, billing and payroll. TierPoint Culture Kent emphasized the importance of having an entrepreneurial culture. He also described TierPoint as a company built to cope with rapid change. Kent believes it is of utmost importance to make it easy for customers to do business with TierPoint, as well as to offer superior customer care. Kent underscored the entrepreneurial opportunities available at TierPoint as crucial in being able to retain top talent after completing acquisitions. One example which he shared was a recent restructuring, when former Hosted Solutions executives Jeff Bertocci, Sr. vice president, Service Delivery and Rob Carter, Sr. vice president, Solutions Engineering, were two of the three executives selected to head regional initiatives. Product Enhancements The Windstream Hosted Solutions acquisition provided TierPoint with a “single pane of glass” customer portal, and Gartner Magic Quadrant recognition for industry leading software defined Disaster Recovery-as-a-Solution (DRaaS). Additional core services being rolled out across the TierPoint portfolio included: managed security, managed network and managed hosting, as well as private and multi-tenant cloud offerings. Kent told Data Center Knowledge that TierPoint is investing $6 million to $7 million in R&D each year, including a 20-member team focused on software upgrades and new solutions. In aggregate, TierPoint has about 300 employees involved with its Solutions Engineering group, including service delivery and customer support. TierPoint’s latest products and services are available to almost all customers across the portfolio at this point in the integration process. Market Opportunities TierPoint often assists enterprise customers to manage data in close proximity to where the businesses are located. Therefore, interconnection fees make up a smaller percentage of TierPoint revenues than reported by some publicly traded peers. One notable trend Kent mentioned was an “unprecedented” amount of multi-site opportunities. Demand is coming from both existing clients and the new customer pipeline. In 2016, about 60 percent of TierPoint’s lease signings were with existing customers, and the remaining 40 percent represented new logos. Looking ahead to 2017, TierPoint expansions into the Southwest US could certainly be on the horizon — either to make opportunistic acquisitions, or to serve an existing customer. International expansions have been discussed with existing customers, but at this point they are quite preliminary in nature. Kent described them as just “putting a toe into the water,” and mentioned facilities could always be leased as a “stop-gap,” if necessary. Bigger Picture Data Center Knowledge inquired about “industry buzz” after the election. Kent happened to be in New York the day after the election. He observed that despite “the shock,” it was pretty much business as usual for everyone. Kent pointed out that the data center industry was not heavily regulated, (compared to cable television for example), and mentioned the widely held belief Republican administrations were generally viewed as being business friendly. Read more: Data Center Experts Weigh-In On Trump Economy In response to a question about the availability of funding for acquisitions, Kent said that TierPoint “was well-positioned as a private enterprise for quite some time.” TierPoint has multiple options for funding in addition to equity, including bank debt, and the high-yield bond market which he feels has “generally not been tapped by the industry.” Kent also remains comfortable with the appetite of private equity firms to put money to work in the data center industry. Regarding the recent pullback in the shares prices of publicly traded REITs, Kent opined that they were now trading much closer to historical valuations. Read more: Data Center REITs Q3 Update – Is the Sky Really Falling? Kent emphasized it was far easier to make strategic acquisitions to support long-term growth without having to worry about the daily price fluctuations of publicly traded shares. Kent will be open to looking at all strategic options for TierPoint in the future. However, at least for the near-term, he made it perfectly clear to Data Center Knowledge that there was still plenty of wood left to chop as a private company.   (Comment on this)
3:27p	Moncton Colo Becomes the Hottest IPv6 Submarine Cable Port With a population under 70,000, Moncton, New Brunswick was originally known for its wine and food festivals as a tourist destination, and its location just a few miles from the beaches.  But geographic positioning smack in the center of Canada’s Maritime Provinces and close to the Northumberland Strait, made it a strategic center for Internet traffic across the Atlantic Ocean. Back in February, 2015, a colocation provider called Fibre Centre launched a combination submarine cable junction point and network-neutral colo facility in Moncton in a building overseeing the Petitcodiac River that leads into the Bay of Fundy.  It’s a 23,000 square-foot facility with N+1 redundant power and cooling and access to dark fiber.  Nice, if you’re opening a bunch of bank branches along the North Atlantic coastline. When it opened, Fibre Centre’s advantages appeared to be that it sat cattycorner of a lovely park, and was near a Tim Horton’s donut shop.  Today, it stands at the focal point of transatlantic Internet commerce. Just across the Bay, you see, is Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The Hibernia Express cable — a submarine system whose builders profess upwards of 53 terabits of total capacity — links Halifax directly with Cork, Ireland and Brean, England, at the mouth of the Bristol Channel.  (Presently, it’s listed by Greg’s Cable Map as providing 8.8 Tbps on a theoretical capacity of 42 Tbps.) When it came online in September 2015, the independent telecom infrastructure analysis firm TeleGeography estimated that it improved on measured latency in transatlantic transactions by about 20 percent.  Then last January, it improved on that figure by purchasing additional backhaul. If information is the most valuable of modern commodities, then Hibernia Express is one of the world’s most valuable shipping lanes. Which makes Monday’s development not so ordinary after all:  Fibre Centre has acquired a new tenant, in the form of Hurricane Electric, touted to be the world’s fattest IPv6-native Internet backbone provider. Hurricane operates some 17,000 active BGP sessions (low-level Internet gateway protocol), the status of which is reported live.  In March, it crossed the threshold of providing some 5,000 points of adjacency to IPv4 networks; and at the time of this writing, that number had swelled to 5,931. According to Canada’s Global News, while the unemployment rate for New Brunswick is 10.2 percent, Moncton is struggling to fill nearly 3,000 IT job vacancies.  The area is evolving so fast with respect to its technological capacity that it’s creating a huge skills gap that the education system is racing to fill. Once again, a cable connecting a handful of points on the globe is changing the rate at which that globe spins. (Comment on this)

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