John Keagy, co-founder and president of San
Francisco-based colocation service ColoServe, recently talked about the
company.
How did ColoServe get started?
ColoServe is a division of ServePath, a Web hosting company.
We operate our own San Francisco data center, a facility that was
originally built but never uses as expansion space for MCI. We were
really lucky to acquire this data center when WorldCom went bankrupt, so
we decided to expand from dedicated server hosting to provide colocation
and data center services.
Once we had the space, it was easy to
go from there and start ColoServe, because we already knew that there
was a demand for a conveniently located San Francisco colocation center.
Not only we were really fortunate to get our hands on this
facility to begin with, but MCI still operates the electrical and
cooling infrastructure for our facility, because they lease the three
floors above our data center. Local phone service (and therefore 911
service) is routed through the building, which makes it an "essential"
facility. There are dual 2-megawatt generators and 20,000 gallons of
diesel on site plus other infrastructure improvements.
What got you personally interested in doing this work?
One of my first adventures into the business was an ISP that
I founded in the 1990s, and my partner David Hecht and I turned it into
the most profitable ISP on the West Coast.
After I sold the
business in 1999, I tried my luck with other stuff during the dot-com
bubble, but in the end David and I decided to return to the ISP business
that we knew and loved. We realized that there were people out there
making a lot of money providing Web hosting services, so we figured why
not us?
Why do you feel there's a need for what you
provide?
For some of our customers it's about having their
own specialized equipment and the ability to actually get their hands on
their gear whenever they want to. Dedicated server hosting is often less
expensive than buying your own hardware, but for the customers who live
in the area it is reassuring to know that if something happens to their
servers, they can immediately come here and fix the problem.
There's also a growing awareness among business owners of the
importance of secure facilities. Living and working in San Francisco and
the Bay Area you have to be prepared for that inevitable earthquake, and
although most buildings in the city have been retrofitted to withstand a
sizeable earthquake, not many buildings are as secure and reinforced as
our data center.
What types of services do you think
ColoServe will be adding in the future?
We're expanding our
data center to accommodate our growing client base. We're also working
on some new Ethernet data services products, which are very exciting
because metropolitan Ethernet networks are finally reaching high levels
of penetration in terms of their availability to the business community.
Companies will be able to replace expensive T-1 lines and other
connections with high-speed Ethernet lines that run over local fiber
loops throughout the Bay Area, which will really improve the performance
of their Internet connections and make lots of other Internet services
available to them.
Disaster recovery and data replication for
backups are two major services lots of companies are looking at,
especially given the number of natural disasters in 2005, and Ethernet
data services eliminate some of the bottlenecks to make these work
better.
What kinds of challenges are there in providing
your services?
One of the most challenging things facing
ColoServe today is the increase in electricity prices. As equipment
becomes smaller physically, it is possible to fit more of them into the
same space, which then requires more power.
For instance, a lot
of the new types of high-density blade servers have extremely high power
requirements. That's why we are expanding data center in the next year
and adapting it to the new power requirements.
Do you
know a Bay Area company we should cover? Let us know about it. Send
your local profile candidates to dan@computeruser.com.
