Silent Partner

The last few weeks have been pretty quiet as far as datacenter news is concerned. It’s not that surprising considering we’ve reached the Summer doldrums and a lot of folks are taking vacation and generally enjoying the long days and warm weather. Nonetheless there have been some news worthy events. Here are couple that popped onto our radar.

First off, Terremark continues its aggressive expansion plans with the addition of a new facility in Amsterdam. The NAP of Amsterdam will serve as Terremark’s flagship European facility and offer their full breadth of services including colocation, managed hosting, cloud and peering. The site will house an extension of the AMS-IX in order to deliver extended peering capabilities for customers who require reduced latency and increased savings against their transit cost.
The initial facility will be 25,000 square feet of conditioned space and be available in Q4 of 2011.

Meanwhile in the vein of “it’s about time”… AT&T announced last week that it will spending an eye-popping $120 million to upgrade a legacy Ohio Bell datacenter to support their wireless data service. The overwhelming success of the iPhone has clearly taxed AT&T’s infrastructure and with the upcoming rollout of 4G technology, capacity and coverage issues could potentially get a lot worse. Here in San Francisco AT&T’s 3G service flat-out doesn’t work in a lot of areas although the recent network upgrades have made some improvements in coverage. The article below mentions that AT&T’s new site is being constructed to service the East Coast which leaves us wondering whether plans are afoot for another site for the West Coast.

Finally in the intensely competitive Dallas market there has been some acquisition activity. For one, low cost leader Colo4Dallas has been acquired by a group of private equity investors namely Charterhouse and Thompson Street. Word around the campfire is that GI Partners has also acquired dedicated hosting and cloud provider Softlayer. Although there has been no formal announcement this would be a logical pairing considering GI’s existing investments in ViaWest, Telx and fellow Texas host The Planet.

Thanks for stopping by. We’ll see you next time.

Terremark Launches the NAP of Amsterdam »

Can AT&T’s datacenter plans save the iPhone? »

Cequel Data Centers Acquires Colo4Dallas »

It was just over a year ago that Michael Jackson passed away. For the Silent Partner team that event is forever associated with the Telx CBX conference since we learned about his passing right as we walked into the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. In the months following the conference there were a lot of articles written about Jackson’s death and the huge affect it had upon Internet traffic and social media. We even made reference to this phenomenon here on our blog in November.

Well here we are in the Summer of 2010 and once again there’s been a major news event driving Internet traffic levels through the roof. The good news is that this time the circumstances aren’t as dark. In fact it’s a time for many folks around the world to celebrate because the summer of 2010 means it’s World Cup time. Football fans (Soccer for us Yanks) have converged on South Africa to cheer on their side and revel in the spectacle of the Cup. It’s been an epic tourney thus far replete with drama, excitement and even the epic collapse of favored teams (hello France and Italy). For many folks the most thrilling match was of course the last-minute victory of The United States over Algeria. In the moments after Landon Donovan fired the game winning goal into the back of the net the other ‘net exploded with activity. According to Akamai’s Net Usage Index traffic levels to more than 100 major news sites topped out at 11.2 million visits per minute. As such this would mean it was one of the highest traffic levels ever recorded. For comparison sake, MJ’s death generated almost two-thirds less traffic at 4.2 million hits per minute.

It’s also interesting to note the incredible growth of Twitter as a medium by comparing tweets per X during the death of Jackson versus the World Cup. In 2009 news of Michael Jackson’s death slowed Twitter to a crawl as approximately 5000 tweets per minute hit their platform. (Similarly the LAtimes.com, gossip site TMZ and AOL’s AIM platform were all rocked by the event.) Interestingly the biggest traffic event in the history of Twitter was not the US win but Japan’s victory over Denmark which generated 3283 tweets per second. The average these days is around 750 tweets per second. This news is a testament not only to Twitter’s growth in the last year but its huge success in Japan.

So how exactly do you say GOOOOOOOL in Japanese?

Landon Donovan’s Game-Winning World Cup Goal May Have Set Internet Traffic Record »

The Day the Internet Almost Died »

For those of you kind enough to grace our blog with regular readership you may have noticed some recurring themes. Value, innovation, and environmental stewardship are just a few of the topics we explore within the context of our business. With a backdrop as large as the telecommunications industry (estimated at $3 trillion in 2010) one would assume other folks are also exploring these concepts and questioning the status quo. Yet for all its size and prevalence there is scant innovation and a resounding lack of value for the consumer of telecom products.
 
So whenever we encounter another person using their soapbox to speak out against this sad state of affairs we are, in a word, stoked. I guess you could say it is validation of our cause. It gives us the newfound confidence that comes from recognizing that there are comrades out there standing by our side in the fight.
 
So here’s an article from GigaOm that captures many of our sentiments on the telecom landscape—no innovation, no value and a lack of concern for the right sizing or greening of production processes. Granted, this piece is speaking more to the consumer side of telecom but the points made by the author are germane to our world nonetheless.
 
As a whole telecommunications is faced with a unique set of circumstances which slow the pace of change. To own and operate a network can be a complex and expensive proposition. Many providers are reticent to upgrade and improve their networks for fear of affecting their customer base. Furthermore simple upkeep on a large installed asset base of routers, switches, DWDM gear, optics, etc. can be costly enough. When the markets become hyper-competitive as they are today, margins are compressed and the funds to support network improvements dry up. Adding to this problem are the telecom equipment providers who are driven by the same, short refresh cycles seen in consumer electronics and processors. This means “innovation” only happens in small incremental bits, often times resulting only in cosmetic improvements. For a good analogy think of the PC market which was flush with innovation in the 80s but over time matured into its current bland and uniform state (Apple aside).
 
Fortunately there is hope for change in adversity. The industry is overdue for a sea change and the intersection of economic pressures, regulatory efforts and even green initiatives could be just the elixir we need to spur innovation. Our belief is that true innovation will have the twofold effect of resetting the market for network services to a more tenable pricing structure and delivering long overdue improvements in functionality and feature set to the end user. Until then we remain steadfast in our search for value. Be good.

Is a “Net Zero” Phone Bill Achievable? »

Kevin

Yesterday Quality Technology Services announced the launch of their new channel partner program featuring Silent Partner as a founding member. The following press release provides details of the program as well as a nifty quote from our CEO Mike.

One of the challenges we face in today’s business climate is finding competent partners who offer a hybrid of traditional colocation in conjunction with a suite of managed services. Working with QTS, Silent Partner is able to deliver this unique value to our client base while also expanding our reach in key datacenter markets including the Bay Area, Atlanta, New York/New Jersey and Northern Virginia.

Thanks for the press QTS. Here’s to a long and fruitful partnership.

QTS Launches New Channel Partner Program; Announces Two New Partnerships »

Wow, what a blast!  

The spirit of Harry Denton was in the house on Sunday as Silent Partner hosted the kickoff party for NANOG49. Thanks to everyone for coming out and enjoying the views from high atop the Sir Francis Drake. We’re always excited to cultivate new members of our ecosystem and there’s no better place to do so than NANOG. After all, these are the folks that make the Internet work.

An extra special thanks goes out to our friends and co-hosts from Dyn Inc. Kyle did a great job as the MC for our raffle. As an aside, I think he’s got potential as a game show host… perhaps some moonlighting? Also the t-shirts were a huge hit and I noticed quite a few folks sporting them last night at the Netflix party.

OK thanks again everyone and don’t forget that DNS is Sexy.

Yo! NANOG is coming to the city by the Bay. 

This Sunday kicks of the 49th session of the North American Network Operators Group. NANOG49 is sponsored by our friends from Netflix and will be held at the Westin Saint Francis in Union Square.

Silent Partner will be hosting the Sunday Social in conjunction with our friends from Dyn Inc. The theme for the event is “Silent Partner Thinks DNS is Sexy.” We’re super excited to be hosting and together with Dyn we have some cool giveaways, themed t-shirts and of course libations on the house. Considering the hometown nature of the event we’re anticipating a great turn-out of local friends and family from around the industry.

As usual the conference will also give us a chance to connect with network buddies from around the globe.

We look forward to seeing you here in SF. Don’t forget to bring a jacket because as Mark Twain said…

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

NANOG49 in San Francisco »

One of the interesting nuances of life at Silent Partner is that for non-industry people it is sometimes difficult to understand who we are and what we do. From the outside looking in people see all of the amazing companies that we work with and hear a lot of technology terms thrown about but there is still the lingering question: what exactly does it all mean? (On that note, we have a cheeky marketing take on that very question with our web site and buttons asking WHAT’S UP?). Even within the industry there are folks who jump to conclusions about how we operate and misunderstand our business.

That being said, let’s take a minute to break down a common misconception about Silent Partner. Sometimes those unfamiliar with our business believe we are a reseller of datacenter and network services. Let it be known: reselling is by nature contrary to the goals of Silent Partner. Furthermore, it can be argued that the telecom reseller business is in some ways a product of the highest-level issues facing the industry. These include a lack of real value for the customer and a dearth of innovation.

The lack of value is apparent in a reseller model because their “value” equals price (and perhaps a dash of non-standard product packaging and creative billing for good measure.) This is particularly true for the network side of the equation that today suffers from the combined pinch of product commoditization and huge downward price pressure.

Rather than resell services, Silent Partner has created strategic agent partnerships with the world’s leading solutions providers. We remain agnostic within this portfolio of vendors and therefore empower our clients to make the right decisions for each of their unique business needs. The goal is to provide the highest levels of consultative support possible. Our experience has shown that innovation can occur within the telecom sector when clients have the freedom to mix-and-match best in class services free from the encumbrance of brand. In other words deregulation means you don’t just have to buy AT&T across the board.

In addition because we operate as an extension of network engineering and operations teams and represent their interests we are in a position to ensure that each piece of our solution is interoperable, scalable and secure. This holistic vision creates efficiencies and, in turn, productivity for our clients.

We often have associates tell us we’re something different than an agent and more than just a consultant. We like to think of ourselves as value added agents. VAA doesn’t really roll of the tongue but then again it doesn’t mean reseller either. :)

Howdy folks! I trust this missive finds everyone well relaxed after the long Holiday weekend. 

Here at Silent Partner it’s no rest for the weary as we gear up to hit the road once again.

Thursday, June 3rd we will be attending the Telx CBX event in New York.  Last year’s show was a resounding success and we look forward to another round of meetings and networking with top executives from the telecom and datacenter industries. If you plan on attending and you’d like to meet up, give us a shout.

Telx CBX Event »