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World's Largest High-Rise Data Center Opens In New York

CowboyRobot writes with this excerpt from Wall Street & Technology: "[Wednesday of this week], Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the opening [of] a 1 million square foot high-rise data center [in the] old Verizon switching building at 375 Pearl Street. Sabey Data Center Properties, the owner of the property, has named the data center Intergate.Manhattan and says the building's location, power supply and connectivity to underground fiber make it an ideal location for a data center in New York City. ... Intergate.Manhattan has only one tenant so far, the New York Genome Center, a compute and storage platform for 12 leading medical institutions to tackle the big data challenges that will bring the benefits of genomics to patient care." Let's hope they keep plenty of fuel around for next storm season.

60 comments

  1. Weddesday? by Alicat1194 · · Score: 1

    F7 is your friend editors! Are you even reading what you post any more?

    --
    You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
    1. Re:Weddesday? by lucm · · Score: 1

      Simle typo. They meant to say "Weirdest day"

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    2. Re:Weddesday? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      F7 is your friend editors! CAN you even [read] ...?

      FTFY

    3. Re:Weddesday? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's commonly spelt that way on the Sgtreet.

    4. Re:Weddesday? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The reason farmers feed pigs shit, is because pigs will eat it.

      Fuck you timothy, i am not your pig.

  2. Misunderstanding by lucm · · Score: 1

    When I started reading the sentence "Let's hope they keep plenty of fuel around..." I was not thinking it would end up being a reference to storms.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  3. ... Intergate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the summary: "... Intergate"

    Did someone put an instruction to "integrate" a section of text into the summary, fail to find it because it was labelled "Intergate", and then put the un-integrated text online for everyone to read?

    1. Re:... Intergate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That one's not a typo, that's the developer firm's name. They must be used to their sales prospects and city officials tripping over that and saying "Integrate Manhattan".

  4. Why a data center for the building by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... rather than office space for example. Googling around, I found this.

    1. Re:Why a data center for the building by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      Backup power logistics. Especially in a big, corporate-managed skyscraper with lots of "normal" tenants who'd frown upon things like a diesel generator indoors, let alone a post-storm bucket brigade of diesel fuel in the stairwell.

    2. Re:Why a data center for the building by mjwalshe · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Its an ex telco exchange/central office I suspect that the DC is where the switches used to be and they took advantage of the preexisting kit in the building diverse power/ cable routing etc I would suspect that the gen sets are low down on the 1st or ground floors so that refueling shouldn't be a problem - or they have pumps with enough head that can pump fuel up from street level to the generators or have a crane on top and lift up barrels that way.

    3. Re:Why a data center for the building by fafaforza · · Score: 1

      Because no one wants office space downtown, and they've been changing over many existing buildings into residential ones. People are either moving uptown or across the river to NJ.

    4. Re:Why a data center for the building by dbIII · · Score: 1

      To me it makes more sense to put this stuff in a light industrial area that happens to have decent connectivity (unlike the light industrial area where I have my stuff). If it's big enough some industrial neighbours would be happy enough to pay a bit to have the waste heat. You've then also got land costs down to a sane price so can afford to have a generator (or two - I've seen one that fired up during tests every month for nearly 20 years and then wouldn't start when it was needed) sitting in a shed outside the building.

  5. Intergate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Must be a fan of Ghost in the Shell

  6. How can they compete with other data centers that by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How can they compete with other data centers that lower land costs and are not in NYC / Manhattan.

    Also what about cooling?

    Also the costs of trucking stuff into Manhattan is high in just tolls.

  7. Why are there even data centers in the east coast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't get why data centers even setup shop on the East Coast. The West coast is much more geologically and weather stable. When was the last time you heard of an Earthquake taking out a data center? Meanwhile East and South-East data centers are constantly having to dodge severe weather and fires.

    In understand the Wall ST reasons, but no other reason even makes sense. Even Iceland makes more sense than NYC.

    I've had nothing but problems when machines are hosted in NYC, Quebec, and Florida, seems like they all shutdown in a heartbeat when weather or fire is anywhere nearby.

    Meanwhile my hosting services in Las Vegas, San Jose*, Seattle and Vancouver* are never down.

    *Though fire has caused loss of connectivity in these places, it was for much shorter periods of times than fire's at iWeb in Montreal which resulted in days of service being lost.

  8. To H E dobule toothpicks to a data center in NYC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ignoring the cost of taxes..square footage and electricity...TO ANYBODY WHO MAY NEED TO TELECOMMUTE INTO SUCH A DATACENTER...EVEN FROM ANOTHER STATE - New York will want state income taxes from you. Yes, that is right folks...if yoiu admin a server in New York...even remotely...New York says they deserve income tax from you! To hell with that! If I am sitting in Minnesota...there is no way I am going to pay taxes in Minnesota AND New York...for a server being administered in New York!

  9. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by boulat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although an excellent question, this has always been counter-intuitive about Manhattan.

    Technically its a worthless piece of land and yet everyone flocks here and keeps pimping up the prices.

    This Datacenter would not be going out of business anytime soon, and neither properties that charge $200/sq. ft. The reason is quite simple - proximity to other tech companies makes it a favorable location, and if you don't have to travel through Lincoln or Holland tunnel, then you don't have to waste an hour in traffic. As a CTO/ IT Manager you will likely chose a location that is within minutes of your office or place of residence. Time savings for you will translate into customers offsetting this cost for a faster service and bragging rights. Who wants to see 'our datacenter is in New Jersey'?

  10. Re:To H E dobule toothpicks to a data center in NY by craigminah · · Score: 1

    It's official, "New York SUCKS."

  11. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Above · · Score: 2

    Latency.

    High frequency trading firms will pay big bucks to be closer to the exchanges as they can't (yet) cheat the speed of light. If being closer makes an extra billion a year, the cost of the data center space is not relevant.

  12. Re:Why are there even data centers in the east coa by guruevi · · Score: 2

    Shit happens whether it's storms or earthquakes. Storms just take power out, the data will be relatively safe. Earthquakes or volcano's (Iceland, Yellowstone, San Andreas fault line) will take out entire infrastructures and destruct data.

    Besides that, ping times between east coast and west coast are anywhere between 100 and 400ms on a good day, that's a LOT of latency if everything was concentrated over there. Then there is also the issue of pipe sizes across the continent - it's far cheaper to get dedicated 1Gbps between New York City and say Buffalo, NY than between NYC and San Francisco.

    --
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  13. Highest Rise Data Center by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cantor Fitzgerald used to have their data center on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, on 9/11, they found it wasn't the best location.

    Fortunately, they'd been planning a move to NJ anyway, so they moved it along a bit ahead of schedule.

  14. For some odd reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article reminded me of this one: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/22/michael-bloomberg-were-going-to-have-more-visibility-and-less-privacyget-used-to-it/

  15. Re:To H E dobule toothpicks to a data center in NY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    http://voices.yahoo.com/if-telecommute-outside-york-subject-8561125.html

    Read 'em and WEEP!!

  16. Re:Why are there even data centers in the east coa by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

    much more geologically ... stable

    Which West Coast are you talking about? The one with all the earth quakes?

  17. Pics or it didn't happen

  18. Cloud Computing by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    You're doing it wrong.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    1. Re:Cloud Computing by dbIII · · Score: 1

      You're doing it wrong.

      Maybe www.owncloud.org or similar self hosting projects.
      I'm not entirely sure if that's doing it right because I don't really know much about what people want in the "cloud". I haven't been following the dropbox thing much apart from laughing at spectacular security fuckups (eg. not being able to revoke sharing, being able to get other people's files from an utterly stupid dedup fuckup or even being able to login to other people's accounts without a password one night), and all I know about Azure is they were off the air due to forgetting about leap years FFS.

      It appears that people want the cloud stuff whether it's a stupid idea or not so we've got to be able to give them something like it that is not going to inevitably bite them on the arse and have them blame us for not warning them (even if we have).

  19. Yes, they say it is great. by houghi · · Score: 1

    the owner [...] says the building's location [...] an ideal location [...]

    What else would they say? Press release : The location is heavily overpriced and actually the worst location one could ever build a datacenter. Everything is so much more expensive and we never thought it trough.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:Yes, they say it is great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am very sure they did think it through, they are just smarter than you, and understand that there is a market for data-centers that are not in the middle of nowhere, 20-100ms away from everything.

  20. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by afgam28 · · Score: 1

    That's what I thought too. So I was surprised to read this:

    Intergate.Manhattan has only one tenant so far, the New York Genome Center, a compute and storage platform for 12 leading medical institutions to tackle the big data challenges that will bring the benefits of genomics to patient care.

    Not sure how these guys are going to benefit from the low latency that comes with being physically close to Wall St.

  21. They shouldn't advertise it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just makes it sound like a huge target for evil-doers and guys with dastardly mustaches.

    Out of curiousity, how do they back up the data at huge centers like this?

    1. Re:They shouldn't advertise it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      USB thumb drives.

      Lots of them.

  22. "Intergate.Manhattan" looks like a typo in print. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did anyone marketing this consider how "Intergate.Manhattan" looks in print? Interpreting the period as punctuation (which, historically, it is) corrupts the interpretation of everything after it. It makes the thing impossible to read about. I couldn't make sense of the summary because of this. Not to mention "Intergate" looks like a misspelling if "integrate".

  23. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by alphatel · · Score: 1

    Second time around, better results?
    This was originally the Verizon Building. In 2007 Taconic purchased this building for resale. You might remember them from such deals as Google buys building for 2 billion.
    Taconic walked away from 375 Pearl in 2008 as the logistics failed. Not sure how a commercial concept on this building is suddenly going to work for someone else.

    --
    When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
  24. New York Genome Center is a Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NYGC is a wannabe "compute and storage platform for 12 leading medical institutions". So far it only effectively acts as a shipping facility for CA companies performing high-throughput assays.

  25. Build Datacenters Up by sanman2 · · Score: 2

    Since datacenters always pack a lot of value per sq-foot, they would be a cool way to to finance the tallest skyscraper.

    I've always wondered how cold it is at the top of the Empire State Building, Sears Tower, etc, but I figure it must be a lot colder than street level. That would make for better cooling than a regular building, all other things being equal.

    Furthermore, it would be a nice way to integrate data processing and communications, which are both vital for the data center. Instead of having separate communication towers, if the data center is built into a skyscraper then you'll already have plenty of height for your communication antennae.

    Perhaps that data-center-skyscraper could also sport lots of solar panels to reduce its carbon footprint.

    1. Re:Build Datacenters Up by GoogleShill · · Score: 1

      The top of the Empire State Building (excluding the spire) is 1250ft. With a standard lapse rate of 3.5 degrees F/1000ft, that is only about 4.4 degrees F difference. There may also be other environmental conditions that affect the temperature differential, like the high amount of retained energy by smaller buildings at ground level. I personally don't know if a few degrees difference in ambient temperature changes much as far as cooling costs.

    2. Re:Build Datacenters Up by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      The top of the Empire State Building (excluding the spire) is 1250ft. With a standard lapse rate of 3.5 degrees F/1000ft, that is only about 4.4 degrees F difference.

      Depending on location, buildings do weird things temp wise. The building next my work was only 6 stories tall, but for some weird reason cold wind would funnel down the side and make the north side of my building parking lot really frigid. the trees in that area were permanently bent in th ewind. plus in an enclosed area, heat is contained and rises. It ends up being pretty complex. sometimes lower will be warmer.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:Build Datacenters Up by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Typically close to half the wind that hits the building flows directly down to street level if it hits the side of the building square on. That's one reason for awnings. Civil engineers used to do things like put building models in big tubs full of flowing water and squirt dye in to see where the wind would go - very cool to watch and sometimes a bit different to what a computer model will tell you (turbulent flow is a bastard to model).

  26. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You might be imagining that location is irrelevant for datacenters. I mean, your computer is on the same Internet, right? Who cares where they're physically located?

    Well, for one thing, there's the issue of latency. If you're working in NYC (as many businesses are), then you'll get lower latency going to a server in NYC than a server halfway around the world. This is especially important in the world of high-frequency trading, but it can also be a big deal for businesses that are operating in the cloud (instead of having local servers).

    Second, there's the issue of physical access. If you're colocating servers in a datacenter, you might still want to get physical access to them at some point, and you'll want it to be easy to get to.

    Then, for the datacenters, there's an issue of having access to resources. NYC has tremendous infrastructure, which can help all kinds of businesses operate more efficiently. But these resources aren't just about getting access to fast internet and reliable power, but also about things like staffing, business contacts, etc. If you build your datacenter in the middle of nowhere, then your talent pool-- whether you're talking about techs or management or executives-- is restricted to those willing to live out in the middle of nowhere. Though I've never run a datacenter on this scale, I can tell you that one of the hardest parts of running IT projects is finding competent and reliable staff, including finding good managers and executives.

  27. Re:Why are there even data centers in the east coa by sanman2 · · Score: 1

    Some data centers have to be near their users. It's called latency.

  28. Latancy for wall street by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

    could be going after DR for banks on wall street or HFT trading

  29. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by plopez · · Score: 1

    Many major research centers work with other institutes all across the globe. Being on the same networks as Wall Street you would have lots of band width to shuffle huge amounts data to England, France, Japan, etc.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  30. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    But there middle of middle of nowhere and some out of the of downtown high-Rise area and for reliable staff paying hem $15/hr no benefits in NYNY is SHIT pay.

  31. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

    Wall Street thinks Jersey City is a better place to build data centers than Manhattan.

    As far as I know, JC didn't suffer massive infrastructure damage when Sandy came through either.

    --
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    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  32. Scariest building in Manhattan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's forty stories tall and has no windows; not a single one. I've always considered it the creepiest building in the city. I'm not surprised they put a data-center in it - what else are you going to do with a giant, windowless monolith?

    1. Re:Scariest building in Manhattan by gniv · · Score: 1

      33 Thomas St is equally ugly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street (same deal, just replace Verizon with AT&T)

    2. Re:Scariest building in Manhattan by dbIII · · Score: 1

      what else are you going to do with a giant, windowless monolith?

      Stick the man running the city in it, placed in a sealed room, in a tank full of liquid, upside down.
      (http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley)

  33. berislamyuk.web.id by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    jayyid

  34. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is one of those statements that a physicist would make as the hard drive jockey in the Newark data center shakes his head and wishes he had not passed up that lucrative bar tending shift.

  35. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    microsecond latency is BS to begin with. add the overhead of the process and it is laughable.
    Put your buyers and sellers trading algo on the same core and do the math.
    Then add your oversight and corrective components. Then do some more math.
    The speed of light is pretty damn slow these days. Fiber has nothing to do with it.
    ef'in marketing BS invades everything.

  36. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First, in most trading situations, trading firms want to locate their servers in the same data center that the exchange matching engine is located. In the case of the CME, thats Aurora, IL (DC3) and CBOE is NY4 (Secaucus, NJ). -- Not sure where NYSE is located since I only focus on options/futures. We have a large presence in both of these location to shave off every extra bit of time that we can.

    While it might seem mundane to most, that extra ms of time that is saved can make a lot difference to some.

  37. So they turned a data center into a data center by gelfling · · Score: 1

    Because that's all C.O.'s really are, glorified data centers.

  38. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    How can they compete with other data centers that lower land costs and are not in NYC / Manhattan.

    Also what about cooling?

    Also the costs of trucking stuff into Manhattan is high in just tolls.

    And IT people without Big Gulp sodas!

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  39. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's true that it's worth it for HFTs to pay to be close to the exchanges, but the exchanges' data centers are currently over in New Jersey. As a sampler:

      * BATS: Weehawken, New Jersey
      * Direct Edge: Secaucus, New Jersey
      * Nasdaq (including the Boston and Philadelphia Stock Exchanges): Cartaret, New Jersey
      * NYSE (including ARCA): Mahwah, New Jersey

    In any case, when HFTs move to be close to the exchange, they'll will choose the exact same data center when possible. A geographically close building doesn't cut it. But maybe they'd rent space in 375 Pearl for less latency-sensitive uses (research, simulation, end-of-day reconciliation)...

  40. Re:To H E dobule toothpicks to a data center in NY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Informative, but I can't see how two states can tax you on the same income.

  41. Re:How can they compete with other data centers th by atamido · · Score: 1

    None of this post makes sense.

    1. We're not talking about halfway around the world. They could put the datacenter 20 miles away and pay a small fraction of the property and maintenance costs.
    2. Our primary datacenters are ~270 miles apart, and the latency is less than 10ms round trip. 20 miles is going to have negligible latency.
    3. Datacenters have a tiny staff on site for a large number of servers. You don't need a huge talent pool to get someone to rack servers and run cables.
    4. In the rare event that you want to touch a server physically (why?) driving 20 miles just isn't a big deal.
    5. Wall Street stopped putting its servers in Manhattan after 9/11, so you wouldn't put servers there for high frequency trading.
    6. Most major telecom nexus points to the rest of the world aren't in the middle of large cities. There's no reason to have them there. In a large city you have a nexus for the city, which then has a connection to a nexus point off someplace sensible.

  42. I thought they meant 33 Thomas St by bjb · · Score: 1
    I thought they meant 33 Thomas Street, which is another old switching building but has no windows, unlike the Verizon building they're talking about.

    Back in the day (as recent as the late 80s or even early 90s) a lot of downtown Manhattan businesses had multiple phone lines going to every desk at those office high rises. These buildings existed just to house all that equipment, from what I always gathered. While I don't know what it looks like inside today, I'd imagine the technology of today requires only a fraction of that space now.

    --
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