Omaha? What’s in Omaha? Well, billionaire Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha”, and his legendary Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate holding company. That’s just one of five Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Omaha. In fact, Forbes magazine has called Omaha the nation’s number one “Best-Bang-For-The-Buck City.” More to the data center point, Omaha is home to the Scott Data Center complex.Scott Data Center offers over 110,000 square feet of data storage facilities. It has been continually operating since 2006 and is currently just one of two multi-tenant data centers in the United States to achieve Tier III Certification for both design and construction. This certification was awarded by the Uptime Institute, an industry organization focused on improving data center performance and efficiency. They award tier certifications in 26 different countries. Tier III facilities support critical business applications.
One of the newest tenants is Level 3 Communications, the worldwide telecommunications carrier for voice, data, and video. Level 3 is deploying a new enterprise-grade data center within the Scott Data Center complex. It will join more than 350 Level 3 data center facilities in North America, Europe and Latin America. You can select the level of service you require, including the Premier Elite facilities, such as the new Level 3 Omaha data center. All of these data centers are connected via Level 3’s 165,000 intercity, metro and subsea fiber route miles that provide low latency access to corporate assets around the world.
But, still, why Omaha? The fact that Omaha is located in the center of the United States is an asset when it comes to disaster prevention and recovery. If you are insistent on avoiding a situation that wipes out your headquarters building and takes all of your IT facilities with it, you need redundant data centers that are geographically diverse. Keeping everything in one building is efficient, but it is risky for floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires. A separate facility across town is one step better. A facility someplace else in the country that doesn’t have the same risks is better yet.
Omaha isn’t subject to earthquakes and certainly not likely to be a victim of any coastal tsunamis. The Scott Data center design protects it from any potential seismic activity. It is elevated out of the flood plain to avoid any issues with an overflowing Missouri River. Yes, tornadoes can be an issue in the MidWest, but the Scott facility can withstand 250+ mph winds and the uplift of tornado level winds.
There are also financial advantages to locating in Omaha. Electrical power is available and costs well below the national average. You know that data centers are power intensive, both for equipment operation and cooling. There are also pricing and tax incentives that make Omaha an attractive place to build an expensive and sophisticated facility like a data center.
By the way, Scott Data Center meets the security requirements of the Department of Defense. That includes a 24/7 security desk, gated perimeter, dual authentication, surveillance cameras, barrier wall, man-traps, biometrics, generator backup and redundant cooling. Think your equipment and data will be safe? You think right.
Are you thinking about relocating your data center or establishing a complementary or alternative colocation facility to current coastal locations? Get features and pricing on colocation data center facilities available in Omaha and nationwide to meet your business needs.
Photo of Omaha skyline courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
