TMCnet News
Terror put data safety in spotlight [NJBIZ (NJ)](NJBIZ (NJ) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) NJ.'s reputation for digital storage stems in part from post-9/11 fears THE CONVERGENCE CORPORATE center, in Hanover's Whippany section, has always had a high-tech heart. It was built for telecom giant UT in the 1950s, but these days, the 650,000-square-foot complex has a different focus - housing terabytes of vital corporate data. CB Richard ElHs counts 40 "major" data centers in the state, referring to those that measure at least 150,000 square feet. Of those, 19 were built since 2005. That growth reflects not only an increase in data, but also the rapid changes in data storage brought about by new technologies and the new data security demands of a post-9/11 world. Brookfield Asset Management acquired the five-building Convergence park last year, after its previous owner, JPMorgan Chase, made $23 million worth of infrastructure upgrades to the property to boost its data storage capabilities. Brookfield is now seeking township approval to expand the complex by knocking down one of the buildings and replacing it with a 200,000-square-foot data center. The plan is to build the new facility with heavy floor loads and high ceilings, thus giving Brookfield the flexibility to build to suit for a wide range of potential data center tenants. Sean P. Brady, senior director at disfaman & Wakefield, in East Rutherford, said he expects a lot of interest because "there are so many companies headquartered in the Morris County area, and given the proximity to Manhattan and the labor force and transportation." Jeff Hipschman, managing director of CB Richard Ellis, in East Brunswick, said there are generally two markets in the data center world. The corporate market - data centers owned by a company for its own use - has been steady, if quiet, Hipschman said. Those centers largely are owned by financial services firms. More movement recently has come from the colocation market - third-party data center owners who lease space and services to other companies. New Jersey's success as a data center hub has a lot to do with geography, said Jon Meisel, managing director at Jones Lang LaSaIIe, in Parsippany. "The original reason that a lot of financial services firms migrated to New Jersey was for geographic diversity, and for lower electrical costs than Manhattan," he said. Meisel said sending data across the Hudson River allowed companies to spread out their sensitive data sites, but it also was dose enough that Internet-based financial transactions could happen without delay. He said financial services companies generally like to house their data centers within a 30-mile radius for that reason. Hipschman said companies that aren't concerned with latency or having data centers close enough that a local employee could quickly drive to the facility often look elsewhere. "If there's no geographical reason to be in New Jersey, then they will tend to do a nationwide search," Hipschman said. Within the state, though, infrastructure is critical. Data centers require huge amounts of power, so an adequate and reliable electrical infrastructure, as well as access to fiberoptic cables, is critical. Brady said it can be expensive and timeconsuming to bring sufficient power to a site that isn't already equipped, "so what happens is those buildings that have the power immediately rise to the top of all the alternatives that might be available in the marketplace." Meisel said the 1-287 corridor in central New Jersey, and the Route 3 and Route 1 7 regions in Bergen County, have become major data hubs in the state because of their existing infrastructure. Underscoring everything, though, is security. Hipschman said corporations tend to want data centers in areas that aren't prone to disaster - natural or otherwise. "You want to avoid a flood plain. You want to avoid any sort of manmade or natural disaster," he said. "You want to avoid freight lines, highways, airports and flight paths." Meisel said the terror attacks of Sept. 11 served as a reminder of the importance of security, and forced financial firms to ensure they have redundant systems that allow commerce to continue in the event of an attack or disaster. "Many of them were caught off guard" on Sept. 11, Meisel said. "That/snotme saying that - it was published in an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) report." Many data centers now have security systems in place such as retina scanners, guard dogs or "man traps" - chambers separating secure and nonsecure areas that allow only one door at a time to be opened. Hipschman said while the data center industry existed before Sept. 11, 2001, and would have grown even absent the attacks of that day, he said it refocused people's attention on data security. Still, Brady said more recent incidents - like Hurricane Irene's floods and attacks by hackers on companies like Sony - now weigh more heavily on the minds of data center owners. A rendering of the planned 200,000-square-foot expansion to the Convergence corporate center, in Whippany. E-mail to: [email protected] On Twitter: @JaredKaltwasser (c) 2011 Journal Publications Inc. |