Utah Colocation
Colocation in Salt Lake City Metro
Fibernet has established itself as a Utah colocation data center pioneer IT solution company, building it’s premier 40,000 sq. ft. N+1 redundant data center facility in 2002.
- Located in one of the nations lowest natural disaster risk areas
- Great fiber connectivity, on the major East-West US fiber path
- Some of the lowest power rates in the nation
- Data center site selection preferred location (Millions of sq. ft. built out in Utah, mostly large companies and government agencies)
- Abundant local tech talent and business friendly local and state governments
- Ideal Utah climate helps cool the data center efficiently
- Major Delta hub with daily direct flights from all over the US
Why Utah for Colocation?
Utah is where most of the top data archive companies host their data, edging out Las Vegas, Denver and Phoenix as the preferred low cost, disaster safe colocation site selection. Even the NSA selected Utah as the site for its massive 1,000,000 sq. ft. Utah Data Center.
The low cost of power enables world-class data centers in Utah to offer high value colocation at a price significantly less than popular metro areas, and the disaster safe geography makes Utah ideal to limit service disruption.
Additionally, Utah is on the crossroads of internet connectivity from Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles to the East Coast. For those who know, Utah is a very ideal place for data center colocation.
Fibernet’s Salt Lake City Metro Data Center Facility
Fibernet built its own 40,000 sq. ft. data center facility in 2002 just south of Salt Lake City. The Orem data center is ideal for colocation in Utah because of it’s great selection of on-net network carriers, ease of accessibility, close proximity to a hot tech startup market and the low power cost savings and disaster recovery solutions that come with having a data center in Utah.
Availability / Accessibility / Efficiency
Critical to any colocation facility is the accessibility to the data center and the high availability of built in power and network redundancies. Additionally, geographic location plays a large role in the cooling efficiency of the facility.
Utah Data Centers are Highly Accessible
Utah is a major Delta airline hub and with the SLC airport rated as #1 for on-time arrivals you can rest assured that you can easily get to your data infrastructure on a moments notice. Fibernet’s Orem data center is located just off a main freeway exit and is a quick drive from the SLC airport.
Network Redundancy
Uptime is critical for a data center provider, and there is no one better at it than Fibernet. Rest assured that your upstream network is monitored by experts who have gained credentials and years of experience solving and preventing network disruption and ensuring high availability. Fibernet’s network is redundant logically as well as physically redundant with diverse fiber paths into the building.
Ideal Ambient Air Temperature
For 9 months out of the year Utah’s climate fits the ASHRAE window for ideal data center floor temperature and humidity best suited for data infrastructure. This means that data centers like Fibernet can cool their colocation facility more efficiently than data center facilities located elsewhere.
Power Grid
Utah’s power costs are some of the lowest in the nation, and with Rocky Mountain Power as the main power provider, rest assured that the power supply is ample and generated from diverse methods including coal, solar and wind energy development.
Disaster Risk Management
Void of major natural disasters, Utah is ideally located in a low disaster risk geographic region. Historically Utah doesn’t register any hurricanes or ice storms, and there is very little risk of flooding, tornadoes and earthquakes. It’s hard to imagine a more disaster safe region than Utah.
Presidential Disaster Risk Map
Unlike most other areas of the US, Utah data centers don’t have the threat of power outages due to ice storms, flooding and other severe weather.
FEMA Natural Disaster Declarations by State and per Area
Compared to other US states, Utah has one of the fewest disaster incidents for its size. The historical disaster per 10 square miles figure for Utah is incredibly low. If you were to just consider the total number of disaster declarations by state and base your disaster-safe data center site selection criteria solely on that, then you’d put Rhode Island and Delaware on the top of the the list. Factoring in the area of the state normalizes the data and accounts for larger area states having more disasters than smaller ones.
| Disaster Declarations by State and per Area | |||
| State | Number of Incidents | Sq. Miles | Incidents per 10 sq. Miles |
| Alaska | 60 | 663,267.26 | 0.009046127 |
| Wyoming | 28 | 97,813.56 | 0.028625888 |
| Michigan | 36 | 96,716.11 | 0.037222341 |
| Utah | 33 | 84,898.83 | 0.038869794 |
| Montana | 68 | 147,042.40 | 0.046245165 |
| Idaho | 41 | 83,570.08 | 0.049060621 |
| New Mexico | 81 | 121,589.48 | 0.066617605 |
| Wisconsin | 45 | 65,497.82 | 0.068704577 |
| Nevada | 76 | 110,560.71 | 0.068740514 |
| Arizona | 79 | 113,998.30 | 0.069299279 |
| Kansas | 59 | 82,276.84 | 0.071709123 |
| Minnesota | 66 | 86,938.87 | 0.07591541 |
| Nebraska | 60 | 77,353.73 | 0.077565749 |
| South Carolina | 25 | 32,020.20 | 0.078075715 |
| North Dakota | 56 | 70,699.79 | 0.079208156 |
| Colorado | 85 | 104,093.57 | 0.081657301 |
| South Dakota | 68 | 77,116.49 | 0.088178287 |
| Georgia | 57 | 59,424.77 | 0.095919597 |
| Missouri | 68 | 69,704.31 | 0.097554943 |
| Oregon | 96 | 98,380.64 | 0.097580174 |
| North Carolina | 55 | 53,818.51 | 0.102195323 |
| Illinois | 60 | 57,914.38 | 0.103601213 |
| Iowa | 60 | 56,271.55 | 0.106625817 |
| Ohio | 54 | 44,824.90 | 0.120468757 |
| Texas | 341 | 268,580.82 | 0.126963645 |
| Pennsylvania | 59 | 46,055.24 | 0.12810703 |
| Arkansas | 69 | 53,178.62 | 0.129751393 |
| Indiana | 48 | 36,417.73 | 0.131803932 |
| Mississippi | 68 | 48,430.19 | 0.140408287 |
| Virginia | 61 | 42,774.20 | 0.14260933 |
| Louisiana | 74 | 51,839.70 | 0.14274774 |
| California | 242 | 163,695.57 | 0.1478354 |
| Tennessee | 63 | 42,143.27 | 0.149490061 |
| Alabama | 79 | 52,419.02 | 0.150708655 |
| Maine | 57 | 35,384.65 | 0.161086799 |
| New York | 94 | 54,556.00 | 0.172300022 |
| Kentucky | 71 | 40,409.02 | 0.175703345 |
| Washington | 144 | 71,299.64 | 0.201964554 |
| Florida | 136 | 65,754.59 | 0.206829668 |
| Maryland | 31 | 12,406.68 | 0.249865395 |
| Oklahoma | 178 | 69,898.19 | 0.254656093 |
| West Virginia | 66 | 24,229.76 | 0.272392298 |
| Hawaii | 47 | 10,930.98 | 0.429970597 |
| Vermont | 43 | 9,614.26 | 0.447252311 |
| Massachusetts | 48 | 10,554.57 | 0.454779304 |
| New Hampshire | 46 | 9,349.94 | 0.491981767 |
| Connecticut | 31 | 5,543.33 | 0.559230643 |
| New Jersey | 51 | 8,721.30 | 0.584775206 |
| Delaware | 21 | 2,489.27 | 0.843620821 |
| Rhode Island | 22 | 1,545.05 | 1.423902139 |
Threat of Earthquake to Data Center Colocation in Utah
Being located in the Rocky Mountains the principle natural disaster threat is that of earthquakes. But the frequency is nothing compared to California and the severity of destruction is low. For instance, the major fault lines in Utah spread apart as opposed to rubbing together (like the San Andreas fault in California) or against each other (which formed the Himalaya Mountains). So even when there is an earthquake, the damage threat is low.
Carrier Network Connectivity
Utah has a legacy of exceptional Internet connectivity dating back to 1969 when three computers in California were connected to a computer in Utah and the Internet predecessor ARPANET was born. Fast forward to today and Utah is on the crossroads of major East-West Internet connectivity. All of the major fiber providers and network carriers go through Utah, where their paths follow the freeways which split three directions at Salt Lake City and go toward Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As one of Utah’s oldest data center providers, Fibernet is highly connected to major network carrier providers and highly available with diverse paths; offering all of the network and bandwidth you could ever need.
Utah Fiber Provider Paths
Utah is on the crossroads of major fiber connectivity between the East and West Coast in the US. From Utah the westbound fiber networks split and head to Seattle and Portland, Sacramento and San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Image courtesy of University of Wisconsin and ACM SIGCOMM
Fibernet Connectivity
Fibernet has a data center facility in Utah which is one of the most connected facilities in the state and includes on-net carrier network providers such as: XO, CenturyLink, Integra, Hurricane Electric, Utopia, Verizon and Comcast.
Why Do Business in Utah?
Utah has a friendly business environment with a strong tech startup sector and available supply of expert tech talent.
Preferred Data Center Colocation Location
Join the growing number of companies choosing to host their data infrastructure in Utah. Among them are many of the archival and data backup providers, large tech companies, startups and companies of all sizes just looking to reduce hosting costs and lower their disaster risk profile. The most prominent data center facility is the 1+ million sq. ft. government Utah data center facility, which is a giant data archive facility that leverages Utah’s low power costs and abundant local tech talent.
Great Business environment
Utah is among the top states in the nation to do business. The state unemployment is among the lowest in the nation, power costs are low and taxes are low. Available tech talent is fueled by two major universities just 40 miles apart spanning the width of the Salt Lake City metro area. Companies can rest assured that their business will thrive if located in Utah.
Abundant Local Tech Talent
Colocation is easy in Utah because of all of the local tech talent available to employ whether hired directly or through a managed service provider. Fibernet has their own technical staff available to assist with expert IT services and solutions should you need assistance with managing your data infrastructure.