The global coloation market is in the midst of consolidation, with larger industry players buying up smaller data center operators to grow their geographic reach. But even smaller operators can earn serious money in the current climate: according to Synergy Research, the overall colocation market grew 10 percent between the first quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

Meanwhile the Uptime Institute has just issued a warning that the shift off-premises - into either colocation facilities or the cloud - is happening faster than expected.

In the following pages we profile 20 of the companies that are taking advantage of this shift to build great companies, with a short fact-file on each. This is by no means a comprehensive list of colocation prviders - but it does include many of the players we think are making a difference.

In alphabetic order:

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

21vianet

Movers and Shakers - 21 Vianet
– DCD

Founder: Josh Sheng Chen

www.21vianet.com

As the largest carrier-neutral internet data center services provider in China, 21Vianet took a strong cloud position in 2014 when it signed an exclusive deal to deliver Microsoft’s Azure and Office 365 services in China. This has been followed with a deal to provide the infrastructure for IBM’s Bluemix, a cloud service based on Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry, in China.

21Vianet’s data centers are built by Taiwanese manufacturing giant FoxConn, and the two companies are taking this partnership further, forming a joint venture – Smart Time Technologies – which will build data centers for other companies. That venture will start in China but is expected to reach beyond in due course.

Meanwhile, 21Vianet is one of the few Chinese giants to have invested in real estate in the US, opening a data center in Santa Clara, California. This one is a partnership with Server Farm Realty.

Things haven’t always gone smoothly for the provider – its shares halved in 2014 on accusations of  fraud. Those claims were not backed up, and the company bounced back, with fresh investment of $300m from Chinese software firms led by Kingsoft at the end of 2014.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

CenturyLink

Movers and Shakers - CenturyLink
– DCD

CEO: Glen F. Post III

www.centurylink.com

CenturyLink grew from a traditional telecoms company, expanding into data centers in 2011, with the purchase of Savvis. The company now owns or leases some 59 data centers, including significant facilities, such as the Titan data center in Moses Lake – a former US missile control base, hardened to survive a 10-megatonne nuclear strike.

The company has expanded internationally, opening its cloud in Australia and China with partners.

Despite all this, there is change in the air. Data centers have been seen as an opportunity for telcos, but in 2015 doubts emerged across the industry about whether it really adds value for one supplier to handle both kinds of business. Along with other large telecoms players, CenturyLink is exploring options to sell or split from its data center arm, to give it more freedom to operate.  

Possible outcomes include a specialist partner owning the data centers, while CenturyLink sells their services.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

CoreSite

Movers and Shakers - Coresite
– DCD

CEO/President: Thomas M. Ray

www.coresite.com

CoreSite Realty Corporation (CoreSite) is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) with around 17 data centers totalling 2.7 million square feet  in the United States.

The company also operates Any2Exchange, a US peering community, as well as the CoreSite Open Cloud Exchange.

CoreSite owns rather than leases the majority of its space, and builds out in pace with customer demand. It offers space on a wholesale and retail basis.

For instance, the company recently announced it is building a $27m facility in Silicon Valley, which will be leased in its entirety to one Fortune 500 company.

The company started on the West Coast – in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

CyrusOne

Movers and Shakers - CyrusOne
Movers and Shakers - CyrusOne – DCD

CEO: Gary J. Wojtaszek

www.cyrusone.com

CyrusOne started with a data center in Houston in 2001.  Its headquarters is still in Texas, but the company now has 33 sites across the US, in the UK and in Singapore.

CyrusOne has direct experience of the question of whether there is much synergy between telcos and data centers. In 2010, it was bought by Cincinnati Bell, but the telco spun it back out in 2013. Cincinnati Bell still owns 9.5 percent of CyrusOne.

In recent months CyrusOne has been acquiring other providers, including Cervalis in the US northeast for $400m in April 2015. This deal gave CyrusOne four data centers in New York. The company also bought CME Group in March 2016.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Digital Realty

Movers and Shakers - Digital Realty
– DCD

CEO: William Stein

www.digitalrealty.com

Digital Realty is the largest data center Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in the world, with a market capitalization of around $13bn, and around 140 properties in North America,  Asia, Europe and Australia.

Digital Realty floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 and has expanded rapidly. In 2015, it bought Telx for $1.9bn, in effect doubling its size.

The Telx acquisition means the company is now offering services and space to customers, as well as building and providing data centers for competitors such as Equinix.

Digital Realty bases its construction on standardized discrete units, sold in increments by kW of IT load.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Dupont Fabros

Movers and Shakers - Dupont Fabros
– DCD

CEO/President: Christopher P. Eldredge

www.dft.com

Dupont Fabros Technology (DFT) was founded as a real estate company in 1997 and has focused on data centers since 2000, becoming a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in 2007.

DFT operates in the US, with a dozen data centers in four markets, which total approximately three million square feet and 270 megawatts of available critical load.

Along with other REITs, DFT straddles both retail and wholesale data center markets, but has recently made a clear indication that it is more interested in wholesale, putting its New Jersey facility up for sale.

The NJ1 data center in Piscataway, New Jersey, is half full and ready for future expansion. DFT plans to use any funds generated from the planned sale of NJ1 to expand in North American markets, including Toronto, Portland and Phoenix.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Equinix

Movers and Shakers - Equinix
– DCD

CEO: Steve Smith

www.equinix.com

Equinix started out in 1998, offering business-class data centers, and through building and acquisition now has around 150 data centers and a market value of $2.7bn.  

Equinix provides fast connections between businesses within its sites, which it calls International Business Exchanges (IBXs).

In 2015, it completed a $3.8bn merger, buying Telecity, whose 40 European data centers doubled Equinix’s presence in the region. Other recent expansions include ALOG of Brazil in 2014 for $225m.

Equinix also became a REIT in 2015, gaining tax advantages from that status.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Global Switch

Movers and Shakers - Global Switch
– DCD

CEO/Chairman: John Corcoran

www.globalswitch.com

Global Switch has 300,000 square meters in Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

Fully owned by Reuben Brothers, property investors based in the UK, Global Switch’s European facilities are in Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London and Madrid; its APAC data centers are located in Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney.  

The company currently has more than three million square feet of data center space, and has published plans that take this to more than four million, including expansions in Amsterdam and Australia.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Interxion

Movers and Shakers - Interxion
– DCD

CEO: David Ruberg

www.interxion.com

Founded in The Netherlands in 1998, Interxion has 40 data centers in 11 countries within Europe. These include London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid – the main data center markets in Europe.  

2015 was eventful for Interxion. The company was all set to be acquired by Telecity, for around $2bn, a deal that would have created a giant European colocation provider. At the last minute, this deal was sabotaged when Equinix bought Telecity.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

IO

Movers and Shakers - IO
– DCD

Co-founder & CEO: George D. Slessman

www.io.com

IO Data Centers has six locations around the world, including Denver, Ohio, New Jersey, Singapore and Phoenix. The most recent addition to this was a new 10,000 square meter, 20MW data center in Slough, UK. The anchor tenant for this new facility is finance firm Goldman Sachs, also a tenant in other IO spaces.

 Much of IO’s estate is built out using a distinctive modular data center technology, which is sold as “datacenter-as-a-service”. In  2014, the modular technology was spun off to form a separate company, Baselayer. The modules used in IO’s facilities are designed for efficient performance, combining free air cooling with chilled water technology. Management is handled by a data center operating system that offers real-time monitoring and control.

Subsequent tenants can order up data center space as new modules within the shell, and IO promises this can be built in Baselayer’s factory in Arizona, and delivered within 90 days.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

KIO Networks

Movers and Shakers - KIO Networks
– DCD

Founder: Sergio Rosengaus

www.kionetworks.com

Kio Networks is a Mexican company, founded in 2002, which has 32 data centers in 13 technology campuses in Mexico, the US, Spain, Panama, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

The company offers managed hosting, cloud services, security, SAP services and disaster recovery, and aims to offer all services in every one of its facilities.

Alongside its fixed facilities, Kio offers its own Atom mobile containerized data center, designed for migration tasks, remote locations, temporary projects or disaster recovery.  

Kio is also publicly committed to energy efficiency, and has won both Gold and Silver Certified Energy Efficiency in Data Centers Award (CEEDA) certifications for energy efficient data centers in Latin America.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

NEXTDC

Movers and Shakers - NEXTDC
– DCD

CEO: Craig Scroggie

www.nextdc.com

NextDC is an Australia-based vendor-neutral data center operator with sites located in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Canberra, currently valued at around AU$630m.

The company provides scalable “datacenter-as-a-service” and its customers include the Australian government.

NextDC has subsidiaries including OneDC, which provides cloud software for data center infrastructure management, and Axon, a virtual exchange that offers pay-per-hour cloud connections and links to public clouds, including IBM SoftLayer, Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft Azure.

In late 2015, the company raised $100m and made a share offer to raise more, to fund the building of its second data centers in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Brisbane.

For services beyond Australia, NextDC has a partnership with CenturyLink.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

NTT Communications

Movers and Shakers - NTT Comms
– DCD

CEO: Tetsuya Shoji

www.ntt.com

Japan’s NTT Communications is growing a data center business, with significant acquisitions around the world, giving it some 140 locations delivering cloud and data center services.

The aggressive expansion is made possible by NSS’s dominant position in Japan which, despite the country’s small size, is still the largest market in Asia for data centers.

In 2013, NTT Com gained a large US foothold, buying 80 percent of RagingWire for $350m, and it bought German provider e-shelter in 2015 for an estimated $800m, giving it third position in the European market. It also bought Indonesia’s Cyber CSF, with a 24MW facility in Jakarta.

During 2015, NTT Com expanded its floor space by more than 50 percent, going from 214,000 to 350,000 square meters. Its offerings are backed by a global Tier-1 IP network.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

QTS Realty Trust

Movers and Shakers - QTS Realty Trust
– DCD

Chairman & CEO: Chad Williams

www.qtsdatacenters.com

One of the largest US data center operators, QTS owns, operates or manages 20 centers in North America, and has four partner sites in Europe and APAC.

QTS has been expanding its holdings, building what it describes as “mega data centers” in locations including Chicago and Dallas Fort Worth, and acquiring companies such as the public sector Virginia-based specialist Carpathia Hosting.

The company offers colocation, cloud and other services, and focuses on vertical markets including government and healthcare.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Sabey

Movers and Shakers - Sabey
– DCD

President: John Sabey

www.sabeydatacenters.com

One of the oldest privately owned data center operators in the US, Sabey based its data center work on its experience of building clean rooms for Boeing Electronics and cell phone switches for McCaw.

Sabey has three million square feet of mission-critical space in five facilities under the Intergate brand, Intergate: Manhattan and Intergate: Ashburn on the East Coast; and Intergate: Quincy, Intergate: Columbia and Intergate: Seattle on the West Coast.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

ST Telemedia

Movers and Shakers - ST Telemedia
– DCD

President, CEO & Senior EVP: Stephen Geoffrey Miller

www.sttelemedia.com

Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemedia) is an expanding Asian provider, with recent acquisitions outside the APAC region.

In 2015, it bought half of UK-based Virtus and also expanded within Singapore, buying a stake in the local MediaHub operation.

In 2016, it bought a 74 percent controlling stake in the Indian and Singapore data centers of Tata, expanding its own ambitions and enabling Tata to pay down some debt.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Switch

Movers and Shakers - Switch
– DCD

CEO, Founder: Rob Roy

www.supernap.com

Famed for its distinctive SuperNAP data centers, Switch has been built on the ideas of founder Rob Roy since 2000.

So far, Switch’s data centers have been built in Nevada, with its SuperNAP data centers in Las Vegas adding up to more than 1.5 million square feet of space, certified as Tier IV resilient.

The company has announced a $4bn SuperNAP in Reno, Nevada, which it says will be the largest in the world, but it has already trumped that with a $5bn plan to build data centers in Michigan at the iconic pyramid building created by furniture maker Steelcase.

The company is expanding internationally, with plans for a $300m Tier IV SuperNAP in Thailand due to open in 2017. It also has plans for a European SuperNAP in Milan, Italy.

Switch will power all its data centers with renewable energy, and has financed the building of solar farms.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Tata Communications

Movers and Shakers - Tata Communications
– DCD

CEO: Vinod Kumar

www.tatacommunications.com

A subsidiary of Tata, the giant Indian conglomerate, Tata Communications has painstakingly built up a global portfolio of 44 data centers. This has now been reduced, as Tata has sold a controlling stake in its Indian and Singapore properties to ST Telemedia. Tata keeps a 26 percent stake in them.  

Based in Mumbai and Singapore, Tata Communications started its data center business, and built it up until it provides a quarter of India’s colocation data center space,  with most of its facilities built during 2013.

The business was spun off as a fully owned subsidiary in 2014.

The Indian data center market is paradoxical. Despite high demand, it is difficult to deliver services because of patchy infrastructure. Tata has sold its data center business there to fill gaps in its balance sheet elsewhere and fund global expansion of its telecoms and data center business.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Telstra

Movers and Shakers - Telstra
– DCD

Group Managing Director, Global Enterprise Services: Martijn Blanken

www.telstra.com

Telstra was Australia’s incumbent telecommunications firm, and is still its largest telecoms firm. The company has been building up an international business, including telecoms and data center businesses in the region.

Telstra bought Singapore’s Pacnet for $700m in 2015 and has since offloaded some ISP business while keeping data centers and subsea cables.

Meanwhile, the company made a strategic investment in Chinese cloud services provider Qiniu in 2016 through a Chinese subsidiary.

Telstra currently has some $5bn in the bank from its healthy Australian business, so we can look forward to more acquisitions in the region and further afield in the months and years to come.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.

 

Zayo

Movers and Shakers - Zayo
– DCD

Co-founder & CEO: Dan Caruso

www.zayo.com

Zayo Group is a networking and data center company based in Boulder, Colorado, and London. Its network offers dark fiber, wavelength, Ethernet and other connectivity solutions. Zayo has 45 data centers in 31 different markets.

Zayo is in an acquisitive mood and has recently bought Clearview, a provider with two facilities in Texas, as well as a 36,000 square feet data center in Dallas, previously owned by Stream Data Centers.

Building its telecoms base, the company bought London-based Viatel.

Listing: 

This article appeared in the May/June issue of DatacenterDynamics magazine.