(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Managed services provider Horizon Data Center Solutions (www.horizondcs.com) has signed a “turn-key data center” lease with enterprise and Internet gateway data center operator Digital Realty Trust (www.digitalrealtytrust.com) to establish a major new data center in Digital Realty Trust’s Dallas facility.
According to Digital Realty Trust’s Monday announcement, Horizon’s new turn-key data center will support its growth in the Dallas market, where it works with enterprise clients that run extensive enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications that require significant storage and mission-critical reliability.
“After surveying the market, we made the decision to continue our expansion in partnership with Digital Realty Trust and their turn-key data center portfolio,” Horizon chief executive officer and president Lance A. Smith said in a statement. “Their facilities provide state-of-the-art environments for supporting mission critical infrastructure, with advanced cooling, power, redundancy, and sustainability features to ensure that critical applications are available while optimizing energy efficiency.”
Digital Realty Trust’s turn-key data centers are scalable from hundreds of kilowatts to megawatts of IT load, and are located in 27 markets throughout North America and Europe.
According to Digital Realty Trust, each turn-key data center facility is built using the company’s “POD Architecture,” featuring state-of-the-art power and cooling architecture optimized for energy-efficient and environmentally friendly operation. They also use metered power to ensure clients pay only for the power they use.
“Our goal with Horizon is to provide them with space in a Turn-Key facility that is in move-in-ready condition,” Digital Realty Trust enterprise sales vice president Brent Behrman said in a statement. “We provide the state-of-the-art technical specifications and access to power and directly support their green policies through our industry-leading green data center program, which has achieved numerous industry firsts for energy efficiency and environmental responsibility in data center construction and operations.”
Digital Realty Trust has lead the industry in a number of green data center “firsts,” having built the first LEED Gold certified data center. It was also the first company to report PUE energy efficiency data about its data centers and the first real estate company to contribute as a member of The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org).
Horizon is joining new neighbors at Digital Realty Trust’s Dallas data center including the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, which leased a turn-key data center to support its highly sensitive IT infrastructure in October. The Digital Realty Trust property will serve as the new foundation for the hospital’s growing computing and data storage needs.
While Digital Realty Trust has struck turn-key data center lease agreements with high profile customers such as Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), it also offers made-to-order facilities. In November, it signed a major lease agreement with Eircom (www.eircom.net), Ireland’s largest telecommunications supplier, for a new, ground up data center to total approximately 11,500 square meters (124,500 square feet) in Dublin, Ireland.
