Asheville, NC – April 30, 2009: Netriplex LLC, a global datacenter provider headquartered in Asheville, NC, announced today that it has expanded its workforce by 30 percent since January 1 to better support its rapidly expanding customer base. Plainly, the current economic recession is not affecting all industries equally. Independent datacenters, in fact, are growing. In its April forecast, market research firm Forrester says that it expects IT outsourcing sales to increase by 2.1 percent in 2009 and 6.5 percent in 2010.
Chief Technology Officer at Netriplex, Jonathan Hoppe, comments: "Despite a difficult economy, the unabated growth of the Internet for social networking, streaming media, software as a service and other application delivery continues to drive demand for more datacenter space and power. Rather than invest significant capital and operating costs in private data centers, businesses are increasingly outsourcing to independent datacenters like Netriplex who offer high value in both dedicated and colocation hosting."
Netriplex made significant investments in its infrastructure in 2008, making it one of the most robust independent managed datacenter companies of its size. "Facility space at the Asheville datacenter was enlarged by 50 percent, power infrastructure was tripled, network capacity was enhanced to a new ceiling of 480 Gigabits-per-second, and bandwidth providers were increased to 13 and counting, Now we’ve expanded 30 percent in both sales and support engineering staff," explains Chief Operating Officer, John Thompson. "With that level of robustness and redundancy, Netriplex remains a value leader in our industry."
ABOUT NETRIPLEX
Founded in 1999, Netriplex is a global provider of IT infrastructure hosting and business continuity solutions. Its new 15,000 sq. ft. SAS70 Type II certified data center in Asheville, NC, offers web hosting, grid computing, server colocation and disaster recovery office space in a state-of-the-art and completely redundant environment designed for 100% uptime. Netriplex operates other datacenters in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Jose, Seattle and London, U.K.
Most of you know about Uber Bandwidth's growing reputation for its high performance, high value network. But even the best network becomes of no value if power stops and servers grind to a screeching halt. That's a tender subject if a power outage at another data center has cost your business money. You may recall how Amazon's retail operation lost an estimated $31,000 per minute during a virtually complete shutdown on June 6, 2008 that lasted nearly 5 hours (do the math—a $9.3 million loss). At the Uber Center, we take great strides to ensure that won't happen to our customers, resulting in 100% uptime since opening this facility nearly 3 years ago. From the redundant dual bus electrical infrastructure all the way down to fully managed branch circuit monitoring, the Uber Center's high standards assures the performance of every amp delivered to the rack.
At every potential point of failure, we try to exceed industry best practices in order to exceed industry reliability. Here are a few examples for why our power to the server has experienced zero down time. First, data centers sometimes offer cut-rate pricing by installing used equipment for power, cooling, etc. That can be "penny wise and pound foolish" since older equipment typically incorporates outdated technology, lower efficiency and is closer to its MTBF (mean time between failures). The Uber Center's power (and all other) equipment is all brand new, best-of-breed (such as Mitsubishi UPSs) and remains under full maintenance contracts with 4h onsite service SLAs to guarantee reliable delivery of power.
Second, the majority of data centers use "standby rated" generators because they are less expensive per kilowatt. When they are new, well-maintained and from a reputable manufacturer, they generally work fine as long as outages do not extend for days or weeks at a time. But data centers must be prepared for the unexpected. That's why the Uber Center uses "prime rated" generators in accordance with ISO8528 that are designed to run continuously for up to 365 days per year without a strain. Prime rated generators have maximum power available at a variable load for an unlimited number of hours, and they generally include a 10% overload capability for short durations. That could make the difference between uptime and downtime for your servers!
Third, most data centers "exercise" (test) their generators at least biweekly or monthly to be sure they will start when needed. But then they run the generators for a relatively short duration in order to save diesel fuel. After all, these thirsty beasts can drink up to 75 gallons of diesel per hour for every megawatt of power. And at today's volatile fuel prices, that's a lot of money just for testing! But the short-run strategy of many data centers is false economy. Why? A diesel generator needs to run for at least an hour at a time to properly lubricate engine components, prevent carbon and contaminant build up, heat up generator windings and expel excess moisture. Furthermore, even with fuel additives and proper storage, diesel has a limited "tank life" and should be completely refreshed with replacement fuel every 24-36 months or less. In order to achieve these parameters and ensure superior generator reliability, the Uber Center exercises its generators biweekly and for 1-2 hours per exercise at full load in real-time tests using a 50+ item checklist. Yes, it costs us more time and money, but it provides our customers with 100% uptime. And that's what the Uber Center is known for.
 I had the luxury to catch-up on a little reading over the weekend. There are several sites that I enjoy spending time on, and one of them is Network World. The article I've linked to below caught my eye and confirms where things seem to be headed. To me, it makes perfect sense to colocate, but that's probably because we operate a number of colocation facilities. Why would an organization want to build a data center? Unless you've done it many times before, you now have to learn something completely new or spend a considerable amount of money on contracting data center design specialists. When it comes to designing and operating a data center, there is too much at stake if you don't do it right the first time or if you don't have seasoned datacenter operations people on your payroll to manage it around the clock.
I vote for leaving data center operation up to the experts. At UberBandwidth.com, we have a dedicated staff of professionals who manage power, cooling, network connectivity and everything else that a mission critical data center requires 24x7x365. Take advantage of it... save time, a lot of money.. and focus on your core business!
Downturn drives demand for outsourced datacenters
For the full Network World Article: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/022709-downturn-drives-demand-for-outsourced.html
Asheville, NC, March 3, 2009 – Uber Bandwidth (http://UberBandwidth.com), a leading provider of high-performance high-value bandwidth to the data center colocation community, announced today that it has surpassed its first connectivity milestone of offering over a dozen Tier 1 connections to its customers. Utilizing their 1-Terabit-capable network, Uber Bandwidth has achieved this goal while remaining the value leader in the industry at $3.99/mbps.
"Thirteen and growing monthly," counts Jonathan Hoppe, Uber Bandwidth's Chief Technology Officer. "That's how many Tier-1 Internet providers our colocation customers can now access at the Uber Center in Asheville, North Carolina. You can watch the number of Tier-1 providers increase and see who they are right on our website. We have open negotiations with a dozen other providers, and once we reach acceptable agreements we'll be adding them in to the mix as well. Our plans for the future are big. We're running diverse path fiber to other carrier hotels around the United States, and by the end of 2009 we hope to directly peer with over 100 networks. We are well on our way to creating the most extreme network of multiple 10-gigabit connections to every major network in the U.S., Canada and Europe."
To accentuate their new connectivity milestone, Uber Bandwidth's website got a facelift too. Chief Operating Officer, John Thompson, comments: "Prospective clients have given rave reviews to the website's new user-friendly features. It adds online pricing not only for bandwidth but also for the Uber Center colocation space and power, from 1 rack unit up to a full cabinet and more. And to evaluate the robustness of our network, there's now a third-party speed test to use by just clicking a button on our website. Perhaps most mentioned, however, is the new blog that posts timely information about such topics as: ‘Who is your current list of Tier-1 providers? How can you offer premium bandwidth at $3.99/mbps when everyone else is way higher? And why is your flagship data center not in a major city?' Many more topics will be addressed on the Uber Bandwidth blog in the weeks ahead."
Uber Bandwidth and the Uber Center is a division of Netriplex data centers. Through 24/7/365 support and remote-hands-and-eyes services, businesses anywhere in the world can colocate servers in the Uber Center. As demand for the Uber Bandwidth network grows, Netriplex will deploy it at its six other datacenters across the U.S. and London.
ABOUT NETRIPLEX
Founded in 1999, Netriplex is a global provider of IT infrastructure hosting and business continuity solutions. Its new 15,000 sq. ft. SAS70 Type II certified data center in Asheville, NC, offers web hosting, grid computing, server colocation and disaster recovery office space in a state-of-the-art and completely redundant environment designed for 100% uptime. Netriplex operates other datacenters in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Jose, Seattle and London, U.K.
You're right, our flagship data center is not in or near a major city. And for good reason: lower security risk and lower operating cost, both of which are cited by our customers as major reasons why they colocate here. In fact, it was customer demand at our six other data centers—all in major metro areas—that drove our decision to build the Uber Center in Asheville, North Carolina. Major cities are not only higher in building and operating costs (passed on to customers) but, perhaps more importantly, they are generally much higher risk for both natural (hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, blizzard) and man-made disasters (terrorism, riots, crime, industrial hazards, etc.). Yet in choosing an ultra-secure, non-urban location, we also insisted on good accessibility (not the middle of the Sahara) and great connectivity. After many months of research, we concluded the best location in the U.S. to achieve these goals was Asheville, North Carolina, a mountain shielded plateau less than a day's drive for over half (some say 75%) of the U.S. population and now VERY well connected to numerous Tier 1 Internet providers. Our customers enjoy lower risk and lower cost without sacrificing good accessibility and great connectivity. We even provide hours of free remote-hands-and-eyes by certified support engineers to enhance your accessibility to servers. So is our flagship data center really no-where? Actually, it's now-here :) Still have doubts? Check out our white paper on "Choosing a Datacenter Location."
There are a lot of critics out there and some of them are voicing their opinions about our business model. I’m all for ‘freedom of speech’, but making assumptions and asserting them as fact is rarely a wise thing to do.
We’ve seen posts on various forums where our critics claim the following:
- It is impossible to purchase bandwidth for $3.99/mbps
- It is impossible to back-haul bandwidth to our flagship data center in an affordable way
- Our business model is doomed as a result of our ‘buying high’ and ‘selling low’ and therefore Uber Bandwidth won’t be around for very long
Please allow me to clarify how we can not only offer bandwidth for $3.99/mbps, but how we offer first-rate bandwidth for this price by addressing the three claims above with as much detail as our CEO and network security folks allow.
1. It is impossible to purchase bandwidth for $3.99/mbps.
That was true a number of years ago, but it is no longer the case. I remember when I first started out in the business back in 1999, bandwidth could be purchased in ‘wholesale’ quantities (usually at least a fully committed GigE) for $65/mbps. We thought that was a very competitive deal. Today, that is definitely not the case… especially when several things are in place.
a) We pick up bandwidth at the source,
b) We purchase a very large quantity and agree to burst at a premium rate.
By simply purchasing a ‘port’ from the provider, they don’t have to run any fiber. That saves them money. By committing to a large quantity of bandwidth (usually at least a GigE, but in our case as much as 10G) you actually can get a very low price.
It might be hard to prove that we actually pay less than $3.99/mbps without showing you an invoice (which I’m not permitted to do), but here is an example. If you go to Cogent’s website (http://cogentco.com), you’ll see right on their home page that they offer bandwidth for $4/mbps. We don’t use Cogent right now (that’s a topic for another discussion), but they are considered a major player. Other providers, such as Level(3) or XO, are happy to match or even beat a price on an equal commit. We’re finding that no provider wants to lose business to another, and that’s helping us pass significant savings to our customers. The key is getting a ‘port’. As we move more traffic over the coming months and years, prices will only go down more as the industry changes and our buying power increases.
2. It is impossible to back-haul bandwidth to our flagship data center in an affordable way.
It is true that our flagship data center is not close to any major carrier hotels. That was a design requirement in order to increase the geographic security of our facility. This is why we already contracted for fiber from 56 Marietta St. in Atlanta to our location (about 200 miles). We’re actively doing the same with other carrier hotels north of us too in order to create network diversity, but we’ll discuss that in another post later.
Some of our detractors state that it can cost as much as an additional $5/mbps to lease dark fiber and that a wavelength is also very expensive. To the former (dark), absolutely. There are very few providers today who will give you dark fiber, and for good reason. Once you give a strand of fiber away, it’s hard to get back. And, the reason they don’t want to give it away is that they can make a lot more money if they put electronics on it and sell you a wavelength (10G). This is due to the fact that advancements in transmission technology such as DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) increase the capacity of existing fiber by 40 or 80 times. What a fiber provider could sell as a single as ‘dark fiber’ can now be sold over and over again as ‘lit fiber’ in ‘wavelengths’ which means prices can be lowered to gain more market share and acceptance. This is what we buy, and with 96 strands of fiber into our building, a number of them go to 56 Marietta St. where we can pick up transit. Again, I can’t show you an invoice, but with the surprising number of fiber providers in our area competing for our long-haul business, we’ve been able to bring the cost of straight transport to well below $1/mbps. This number will go down as well as we move more traffic.
3. Our business model is doomed as a result of our ‘buying high’ and ‘selling low’ and therefore Uber Bandwidth won’t be around for very long
I hope I’ve given you enough information in the above two points to help you conclude that we’re buying and transporting bandwidth at very competitive rates at least equal to what we’re selling it for. Let me throw some more information at you.
Our parent company, Netriplex, has profitably operated datacenters in the U.S. and U.K. for many years. We have some experience under our belt and we really do know what we’re doing. We make very careful decisions when assessing growth or new opportunities. Any larger data center operator will tell you that when it comes to bandwidth, every customer doesn’t use what they have fully committed to at the same time. This isn’t as much the case with smaller facilities, but when you move more than 5G of traffic, this does become very apparent.
For example, if I sold 50 customers a fully committed 100mbps connection, would I be moving 5G of traffic all the time? Definitely not. In fact, our almost 9 years of experience has given us some data that actually indicates that with the above example, we might (on average) actually peak out at less than 2G. Uber Bandwidth will probably make that number higher since we attract high bandwidth users, but we’re pretty sure it will remain true to some degree.
Does this mean we have oversold our network? Not in the least! (I thought I better pre-empt that question.) It does mean we’ve committed to purchase less transit from our providers which reduces our bandwidth costs, but just like many of our customers, we have high burst capability so that if for some bizarre reason every customer who ordered 100mbps (or 1000mbps, for that matter) used it to the fullest at the same time, we’d have plenty of room to give everyone what they paid for (and then some!).
Of course, you’ve now figured that if we actually use less than half of what we sell, we stand to make at least $8/mbps instead of $3.99. While that is actually quite true (and while you might now feel upset that other data centers are making more than you thought), there is a lot that goes behind the scenes to make the network run smoothly. Redundant Cisco gear, IPS and FCP devices all cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase. They also require us to have pretty brilliant (and expensive) geeks on hand to keep them purring, so in the end, you’re still getting an Uber deal.
Everyone wants to know, “How Uber is Uber?” And that’s a great question that we love to answer!
Our original flash website (that everyone hated) stated that Uber was being built, and that by December 2008 we’d have the full gamut of Tier-1 providers and several Tier-2. Well, we were a little delayed in turning things up by our self-inflicted deadline, but we’re moving right along. The list of providers we’re working on bringing into the mix is getting longer every day, but the bottom line is that right now, the network is already quite Uber.
For the record, here is the complete list of current providers:
Level(3)
Savvis
Global Crossing
Qwest
Sprint
AT&T
Telia
BTN/PCCW
Time Warner
WBS
Charter
Nuvox
ERC Broadband
We have open negotiations with a dozen other providers and once we reach acceptable agreements, we’ll be adding them in to the mix as well. Our plans for the future are big. We’re running fiber to other carrier hotels around the United States and by the end of 2009 we hope to directly peer with over 100 networks. As we make significant developments, we’ll surely blog about it so you can get excited along with us!
Due to popular demand, we've released a new website that is free of Flash. Many visitors commented on the fact that even though they liked the flash, it was too flashy, too slow to load, didn't have a *skip* button etc. We thought it was pretty slick, and my kids liked it quite a bit, but hey... your opinions are more important.
The new site is simple, fast to load and gives more detail in a number of areas. We've even included pricing and a speed test as well.
We hope you like it!
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