DATA CENTERS

Austin has welcomed several data center projects in recent years:

• CyrusOne recently opened a 50,000 SF colocation data center in Austin’s MetCenter.
• Citigroup just built an approximately 300,000 square foot data center in Georgetown (just north of Austin) projected to be operational in 2008.
• Data Foundry recently broke ground on the Texas 1 data center, a 250,000 SF colocation data center that is part of a 40-acre, 100-megawatt data center development initiative called the Data Ranch. The first phase of the two-phase project includes 130,000 SF of data center and worksite recovery space and is planned for completion in Q2 2011.
• Hewlett-Packard chose Austin for two data centers totaling 400,000 square feet when consolidating its national data centers in 2006.
• IBM was contracted by the State of Texas to consolidate several data centers across the state into one location in Austin.
• The Home Depot Technology Center located a data center and customer support operations for their website in 2004.
• Oracle set up an innovative, award winning data center in Austin in 2003. The 130,000 SF data center hosts the world's largest Network Appliance and Dell/Linux installations under one roof. In its IT overhaul, Oracle merged 40 data centers into this site. One quarter of the site's energy supply comes from green sources, primarily a wind farm in Texas, earning it designation as an EPA Green Power Partner and Austin Energy's GreenChoice member.
• NetNation, a Canadian-based web hosting and co-location services company recently located a data center in Austin. The company targets small to mid-sized companies.
• Austin is one of three cities in the U.S. to have a Corporate Franchise Data Center, operated and housed with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Formerly called the Austin Automation Center, this franchise fund provides cost-efficient IT enterprise solutions to support the information technology needs of customers within the Federal sector.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), is headquartered in the Austin area and has a data center, as well as their back-up command center for overseeing the electric grid for the State of Texas in Austin.
• Mi8 set up a Network Operations Center to manage a Microsoft Exchange server from Austin.
• Dell has two global data centers in Austin supporting more than 78,000 employees worldwide, with an additional three smaller data centers dedicated to supporting manufacturing facilities in Austin. The two Austin global data centers comprise one of the largest storage-area networks (SANs) in the U.S.
• The University of Texas System maintains Austin data centers for mission critical data as well as for its super computing centers and research needs.
• National and international lotto systems administrator GTECH operates a mission critical data center in Austin.

Long home to many innovators in the industry, Austin is seeing new success sprout from smaller companies offering new ideas to the industry.

• ColdWatt: produces a line of power conversion products designed to reduce power bills in data centers. ColdWatt, a spin off from Rockwell Scientific, says its power supplies are more efficient than competing products, allowing data center operators to cut costs by using less power and spending less on cooling.
• NetEffect makes a line of high-speed network communications chips that can deliver improved performance to groups of servers working inside data centers.
• Uplogix developed the first integrated remote management solution that goes beyond basic connectivity and monitoring of data centers and distributed infrastructure, providing virtual administration and constant, secure connectivity.

Young. Creative. Productive.

Austin is not only a dynamic business destination, our workforce is a dynamic business asset. It's all about the people, and the labor pool in Austin is by far one of the most innovative, young and educated in the country.

Our ability to attract and retain talent led to our population increasing to nearly 1.7 million in 2008. The region's population grew 32.2% between 2000 and 2008, a rate twice that of the state (16.7%) and four times that of the nation (8.0%).

We are also younger than the country, with nearly half the population (44%) in the working years between 18 and 44. Our median age (32.6 years) is four years younger than the national median (36.9 years). The population is also more educated than the national average with over 38% having at least a bachelor's degree (compared with the national average of 28%).

Within a 100-mile radius of Austin, you will find 38 colleges and universities anchored by the University of Texas at Austin, one of the nation's largest universities and among the tech industry's most well regarded workforce pipelines.

The Austin region features several training providers including Austin Community College, Skillpoint Alliance and WorkSource who develop customized training programs for the information technology industries. These providers are able to adapt to the training needs of our companies and have funding systems in place to support the changing needs of the industry in the future.

Austin Energy, a unique city-owned utility, has an ongoing commitment to reliability and redundancy for large power users in the Austin area, including, 24-7 chip manufacturing facilities, data centers and call center operations. Austin Energy offers district cooling, thermal energy storage, and distributive generation services to companies seeking alternatives to traditional power generation and works to promote green alternatives whenever possible. The utility sources power from various grids, helping ensure redundancy and has a program in place for substation development where needed. Equally important, Austin Energy remains competitive on rates. The City of Austin recently passed an ordinance to lower electric rates for large users by 2.5% if consumption reaches 25,000 kW for two out of the preceding six months and maintains an average load factor of 85% and above. Austin Energy publishes rates for commercial rate classes here: www.austinenergy.com/About%20Us/Rates/Commercial/index.htm.

ISO 9001 Certification for Electric Service Delivery: Austin Energy has become the first of any utility in the nation to earn ISO 9001 registration for electric service delivery. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9000 is a series of international quality standards designed to ensure that all activities related to providing and delivering a product or service are appropriately quality assured. To earn the registration, applicants must develop a Quality Management System that reflects standards of performance and continual improvement of processes and services to its customer, in this case, in the delivery of electric power. ISO 9001 is the most complete and demanding standard in the ISO 9000 series. Auditors from the worldwide entity that administers the ISO quality management program issued the registration on January 3, 2008. There are approximately 250,000 companies worldwide including 25,000 in the U.S. certified in the ISO 9000 series. Austin Energy transmission and distribution work units, however, are the first of any electric utility in the country to be so certified. Austin Energy plans to continue the ISO 9001 registration effort with their Customer Care business unit which includes the utility Customer Service Center, meter reading, billing and collections.

Data Center Efficiency Incentives:

The Data Center Efficiency Program, part of the Power

Saver^TM rebate program, covers a range of data centers (enterprise centers, corporate centers, or server closets) for facilities being built within Austin Energy's service area. Rebate payments are available up to $200,000 per site (per fiscal year) including any eligible bonus payments. The program's incentives are intended to reduce the added incremental costs associated with the specification and installation of high efficiency energy technologies such as massive array idle disk (MAID) storage systems, retrofitted server virtualization, chillers/cooling towers, uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), thermal energy storage systems, and various custom technologies. The data center owner, design professional, contractor or other designated representative or agent is eligible to apply to Austin Energy for rebates on data center facilities.

Commercial Energy Management Rebate Program: Not only are data centers eligible for IT incentives such as Virtualization and MAID storage systems, but through the Commercial Energy Management Rebate Program they are eligible for incentives to increase the energy efficiency of their facilities. The maximum incentive is still $200,000 or 50% of the total job cost (including equipment, installation and tax), whichever is less. Data centers are also eligible for Solar Incentives and can participate in GreenChoice, Austin Energy's renewable energy program.

Other municipal electrical utilities in the Austin metro area include: Bastrop Power & Light, Georgetown Utility Systems, the City of Lockhart, and San Marcos Electric Utility. Where these city utilities, including Austin Energy, don’t go, there are three other providers available. Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative covers eastern rural Travis County, Bastrop County, eastern Hays County and eastern Williamson County. Pedernales Electric Cooperative offers service in the southwestern areas of the Austin metro, including Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs, as well as western areas near Lake Austin and Lake Travis. TXU Energy handles Northern Williamson County including Round Rock and parts of Pflugerville, as well as Elgin to the East.

Real estate is well-priced and available. The Austin region supports a number of available buildings and land sites that provide data center users access to affordable, redundant power, multiple telecom providers, ready access to a talented workforce. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's location just ten minutes from downtown affords sites around the metro with quick and easy access.

Data center buildings typically feature dual feed electric, redundant telecom and other amenities required by mission critical facilities. Spaces range from collocation facilities (such as Data Foundry and OnRamp) to Tier IV buildings including Digital Realty's 75,000 sq. ft. MetCenter building that is designed specifically for data center users. YoungWoo is currently in the construction phase on 241,000 square feet of Tier III space in Norwood Park.

Land sites are found throughout the five-county region. In most industrially zoned areas, dual-feed from separate transformers from the same substation with diverse routing is possible. For high-level mission critical facilities, sites are available in Austin, Georgetown, Pflugerville, and San Marcos with dual-feed from separate substations in place that can accommodate Tier IV construction. Other sites can be made ready for this type of facility with negotiations with the local electric utility and city authorities.

Austin'sMetCenter is one of the few data center parks in the country that features dual-feed electric service from separate substations that are fed from separate power sources in underground conduits. The park has two 400-megawatt on-site electric substations. Redundant water, fiber loops and over 12 telecom providers are also part of the special amenities offered in this state-of-the-art park.

Georgetown, located just north of Austin and home to Citicorp's new facility, has capacity for an immediate 25 megawatts from separate substations. Multiple telecom providers service the area.

For more information about our capabilities or to confidentially request information or a site search in our region, contact Charisse Bodisch, Vice President, Economic Development, at 512.322.5608 or cbodisch@austinchamber.com.