Yesterday's announcement by Digital Realty Trust, Inc. that it planned to build out the next phase of over 170,000 square feet of new Turn-Key Datacenters in five major metropolitan markets to meet escalating demand for its move-in ready datacenter space should be met with enthusiasm. Michael Foust, CEO of Digital Realty Trust, characterized Digital's plans as an acceleration of its development plans in response to increased demand.  

Mission Critical has been expecting this positive climate, and we have stories in development to help you meet your requirements for new data center space. Virtually every data center design firm I talk to references high demand for services, and these projects follow on the heels of many announced and large data centers that have come on-line in recent months. 

Though the high-profile behemoth facilities have been developed by large multinationals that provide internet service such as Twitter, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo, colos such as Digital, PhoenixNAP, and others have been building out new space in many key markets.  For reasons that include size and business plans, facilities like these will always get headlines. 

Yet, there are signs many less publicity-minded businesses are also expanding. Yesterday, for instance, moderated a webinar entitled "Building a Greenfield Data Center," sponsored by Siemens. This was just one session of three on the topic, and each session drew wide audiences (next event: May 13th).  The seven speakers who presented each was enthusiastic about doing so. 

I was warned when I proposed this event, that audiences would be small because of poor demand for new facilities. Instead the reverse is true, with large audiences coming from many industry sectors, including  REITs, government, universities, manufacturing, petrochemicals, communications, retail, and banking. The list included a lot of familiar agencies and companies. The average participant stayed on line for more than 70 minutes. The bulk of the audience stayed for the entire 90 minutes.  

In addition, columnist Dennis Cronin of Gilbane recently wrote about hot data center markets. In doing so, he spoke to a number of people with expertise in site location. They all found hot markets and suggested that they saw an upward trend. Scott Good and Everett Thompson of WiredRE both agreed to help us develop an article on site location, which should be a great help to everyone looking to build a new facility or expand. Information like this does not flow from the top down. 

Growing markets result from organizations making similar decisions at the same time. In that vein, I'd love to hear from you about what developments you are seeing in the market and what changes are planned in your business.