Forsythe Walks The Middle Way With New Data Center

Forsythe Technology's Steve Harris
Forsythe Technology's Steve Harris

Forsythe Technology is in the midst of a data center build that it expects will grab the hearts--and pocketbooks--of one of the most underserved part of the data center market.

Forsythe is targeting that market, consisting of customers too small to take advantage of typical dedicated data center space but too large or too concerned about privacy to be satisfied with colocation racks, with a new data center it will offer to clients on a suite-by-suite basis, said Steve Harris, vice president of data center deployment for the Elk Grove, Ill.-based solution provider.

Forsythe, which for well over a decade has been helping customers with their data center needs, is currently building its own data center for use by customers, said Steve Harris, vice president of data center development.

"We have been doing all sorts of IT and data center projects," Harris said. "The majority of that business is inside customers' data centers, or in other colo facilities. But in the last couple of years, we realized that a lot of the services we have been offering clients we could do with our own data center."

Forsythe could be on to something. IHS, an Englewood, Colo.-based analyst firm, last year estimated that the demand for outsourced data centers was growing three times faster than the demand for enterprise data centers.

"Operating and building data centers is increasingly complex and costly, creating an enormous opportunity for leasing space, power, cooling and connectivity from wholesale and retail data center providers," IHS wrote in a 2013 research report.

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