It’s been an exciting year for us at Data Foundry. We opened our third data center in Austin, we’ve attended and sponsored some interesting events, and we’ve seen growth in some of our ancillary services. As we prepare for growth and change in 2019, we are looking back on events and milestones for the year.
An Eventful Spring
March was a busy month for us. AFCOM’s Data Center World was held in San Antonio this year, and we threw our annual Data Center World networking party on the River Walk at Rio Rio Cantina. Also in March, we sponsored our annual Take Back Your Internet Party with our sister company Golden Frog to kick off SXSW in downtown Austin at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Panelists from Golden Frog, TPPF, the Center for Democracy and Technology and Engine discussed data privacy and the decline of Internet freedom around the world and what we can do to change it.
Later that month, we officially opened our third Austin data center – Texas 2 – and welcomed new tenants. Built alongside Texas 1, the combined facilities make up 455,000 square feet of data center and customer office space. In May, we celebrated the opening of Texas 2 with a grand opening party and open house. We entertained around 100 guests who toured the new facility, played virtual reality games and enjoyed drinks and hors d’oeuvres on our patio.
Structured Cabling Services Expand
This year we saw significant growth in our structured cabling service offering. We’ve always offered structured cabling to tenants setting up new deployments in our facilities, but in the last two years our in-house structured cabling team has helped tenants re-structure and future-proof their data center cabling as well as provide cabling services for clients in other data centers and in corporate offices. Our talented structured cabling team has done an amazing job, and we look forward to a growing number of projects for them in the new year.
Welcoming a New Director of Data Center Operations
This year we hired a new director of data center operations to oversee all of our data centers in Austin and Houston. David Schneider joined us from Samsung’s Austin semiconductor engineering complex where he worked as the facilities director. He has over 28 years of mission critical facility management experience. He began his career with 6 years in the U.S. navy working with the nuclear submarine fleet and subsequently worked for Fujitsu and AMD. His experience is a great asset to our facilities teams, and we’re excited to have him on board.
Houston 2 Open House
In October we held an open house lunch event at our Houston 2 data center for prospects, customers, partners, and anyone who wanted a tour of the facility. Around 80 guests enjoyed lunch and dessert from Pappasitos and networked with longtime colleagues in the data center and telecom industries.
Wrapping up the Year with a Successful Toy Drive
Every year Data Foundry organizes a toy drive for Blue Santa in our offices and data centers in Austin and Houston. This year a generous customer donated five bicycles and dropped them off at our Houston 2 data center. James O’Brien, our Houston 2 facility manager, did an amazing job organizing the drive, as he always does. Thanks to everyone in Austin and Houston who donated children’s gifts this year!
Looking Ahead
This year we filled the current dedicated customer office space at Houston 2, and will be building out the second phase of office space starting at the beginning of next year. We expect the offices will be ready sometime toward the end of spring 2019.
In the year ahead, we look forward to serving as a high-availability edge data center option for more tenants setting up deployments to be closer to their users in the rapidly growing Austin and Houston markets. We also look forward to welcoming some burgeoning AI companies into our high-density data centers as we see growth and expansion in the AI market in 2019. Happy holidays everyone, and here’s to an exciting new year for infrastructure and technology!