SoftLayer says the new facility is designed to create maximum automation, efficiency and control in all facets of the outsourced environment. With over 500 watts per square foot and several hundred tons of cooling capacity, the new facility is created for mass deployment of infrastructure with a power rating of 12kW per rack.

Phase one of the new data center went online with 5,000 square feet of usable data center space able to house over 12,000 servers, says the company. The data center has a long-term capacity of over 50,000 servers in a footprint of 20,000 square feet.

"Traditionally, legacy facilities average 80 to 100 watts per foot and are designed for 2kW per rack. Our new facility was engineered for mass scale hosting that includes a very dense server installation," says Lance Crosby, president and CEO of SoftLayer. "Our goal is to stop server sprawl, wasted space and power and bring the data center back inline with the present and future needs of our customers. We don't waste time, money or resources and therefore, our customers don't either."

SoftLayer Technologies also recently announced it has made a multi-million dollar Cisco upgrade to its core network in order to meet the future bandwidth requirements of the Internet.