Online Tech, a Michigan-based data center operator, recently announced it had purchased a 44,000 square foot Indiana data center in Indianapolis. According to co-CEO Mike Klein, the center will be ready for use in late-September.
The building was bought from Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) for $5 million, and Online Tech is planning to invest another $5 million in computer and power generation equipment. The facility was previously used as a backup data center for MISO, which manages the power grid for the majority of the Midwest.
The Indianapolis facility marks the fifth data center for Online Tech, which already owns four Michigan data centers comprising over 100,000 square feet altogether. The new location provides the company with a center to backup data in case a natural disaster affects Michigan, where snow storms and other inclement weather conditions that affect power availability are common.
As well as the need to geographically diversify, Online Tech chose to invest in the Indiana data center because administrators felt the area was underserved. Citing the fact that Indianapolis is the thirteenth largest U.S. city, bigger than San Francisco, Klein said the company felt businesses in the city deserved better cloud computing providers than were currently available. The majority of Online Tech’s customers belong to regulated industries like finance and healthcare. Because of this, they are in need of massive amounts of storage space for electronic records that must be kept for years and be easily accessible.
The facility will be able to support three megawatts of electrical load and will include 16,000 square feet of raised floor space. The Indiana data center will be capable of delivering a power infrastructure that is fully redundant and ensures uptime. It will also be able to guarantee resiliency due to support from two separate utility feeds. The building is one of the most interconnected in the city, due to its access to a high concentration of fiber optic cables, providing increased options for network providers.
Online Tech’s newest Indiana data center will stimulate the local economy by creating dozens of construction and technology job opportunities.
