ColoServe: Providing Secure Communications In the Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March, 2006
John Keagy, co-founder and president of San Francisco-based colocation service ColoServe, recently talked about the company.
How did ColoServe get started?
ColoServe is a division of ServePath, a web hosting company that is our main brand with over 2,000 clients. We operate our own San Francisco data center, a facility that was originally built as expansion space for MCI but they never used it. We were really lucky to acquire this data center when WorldCom went bankrupt, so we decided to expand from our core business of dedicated server hosting to provide colocation and data center services. We would never have been financially able to build a telecom facility like this one on our own, but finding ourselves expanding into such a large space, and just a few blocks south of San Francisco's financial district, we knew that it was a great opportunity that we had to take advantage of. Once we had the space, it was easy to go from there and start ColoServe, because we already knew that there was a demand for a conveniently located San Francisco colocation center. Many of our ServePath web hosting customers were asking to colo with us, so it was just great when we were finally able to offer them that service.
Not only we were really fortunate to get our hands on this facility to begin with, but another really great thing is that MCI still operates the electrical and cooling infrastructure for our facility, because they lease the three floors above our data center. Local phone service (and therefore 911 service) is routed through the building, which makes it an "essential" facility. There are dual 2 Megawatt generators and 20,000 gallons of diesel on site plus other infrastructure improvements to support the critical operations of the building. That's enough power to generate 1000+ homes, and enough reserve fuel to run off the grid for a few weeks, just to give you an idea. For a startup like ColoServe this situation is ideal. We are able to provide our colo customers with a secure location and high-speed connections without having to invest the millions of dollars that such an advanced facility costs to build from scratch. MCI even has full-time staff to make sure that the backup generators are working properly and will kick in in case of a power outage, and that is something that smaller companies like ours would typically not have the resources for. So I guess you could say we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time, or we planned well.
What got you personally interested in doing this work?
I have always been interested in the exciting world of the Internet with all the endless possibilities that it offers. One of my first adventures into the business was an ISP that I founded in the 1990s, and my partner David Hecht and I turned it into the most profitable ISP headquartered on the west coast. After I sold the business in 1999, I tried my luck with other stuff during the dot com bubble, but in the end David and I decided to return to the ISP business that we knew and loved. We realized that there were people out there making a lot of money providing web hosting services, so we figured why not us? We had the necessary experience and understanding of the business, not to mention an enormous drive and passion for the industry, and that combination has so far proven to be very successful. We are constantly looking for new ways to expand our business and the services we provide, and ColoServe is clear an example of that.
Why do you feel there's a need for what you provide?
There is definitely a huge need for secure data center facilities like ours. For some of our customers it's about having their own specialized equipment and the ability to actually get their hands on their gear whenever they want to. Dedicated server hosting is often less expensive than buying your own hardware, but for the customers who live in the area it is reassuring to know that if something happens to their servers, they can immediately come here and fix the problem.
The Internet is becoming much more important to all businesses, and it is no longer just tech or IT companies who rely on secure servers and fast connections. The costs of hardware and bandwidth have fallen to levels where very powerful solutions are affordable to small businesses, yet the infrastructure costs associated with datacenters and fiber optic connections remain expensive and difficult to set up. As more and more companies make use of this technology, the need for proper back-up power and high speed connections increases, and it is definitely something that customers realize that they shouldn't skimp on.
And there is also a growing awareness among business owners of the importance of secure facilities. A few years ago, smaller businesses would have their servers at their office which made them incredibly vulnerable to power outages, and now they realize how important it is to place their servers in a stable environment like our data center with all the benefits that that entails. Living and working in San Francisco and the Bay Area you have to be prepared for that inevitable earthquake, and although most buildings in the city have been retrofitted to withstand a sizeable earthquake, not many buildings are as secure and reinforced as our data center. If the big one hits - and we know it will eventually - our facility is probably one of the safest places to be. This goes back to what I said earlier about it being what they call an "essential" facility. Both the landlord and MCI themselves have spent millions of dollars retrofitting this building to withstand very powerful earthquakes, and our customers are reaping the benefits of that. They know that they don't have to worry about losing precious data due to power outages, earthquakes and things like that.
What is the company's relationship to ServePath, and what kinds of benefits are there in that relationships?
ColoServe is ServePath. Colocation and dedicated servers go together, and in my opinion only companies that can offer both will survive long-term. We offer colocation because we have a world-class datacenter and have more services to offer colocation customers than any other facility in the Silicon Valley area. We are able to offer our colo customers additional services such as managed protection against denial of service attacks, back-ups, firewalls, load balancing, spam filtration, and much more. I definitely see the trend going towards more managed services, because for small and medium businesses, many of these critical functions are just too difficult to handle well in-house. We also have engineering personnel on-site 24/7/365, monitoring our network and customer equipment from our Network Operations Center - real, live system administrators that can actually help you, at least two on-site at all times. So you definitely get the best of both worlds - the freedom of colocation combined with the benefits of managed services.
What types of services do you think ColoServe will be adding in the future?
Well, we'll be starting the year by expanding our data center to accommodate our growing client base. In terms of new services and products, in 2005 we rolled out quite a variety, including service and hardware monitoring products, and some new security products because security is really a challenge these days on the Internet. Going forward we are working on some new Ethernet data services products, which are very exciting because metropolitan Ethernet networks are finally reaching high levels of penetration in terms of their availability to the business community. Companies will be able to replace expensive T-1 lines and other connections with high speed Ethernet lines that run over local fiber loops throughout the Bay Area, which will really improve the performance of their Internet connections and make lots of other Internet services available to them. Disaster recovery and data replication for backups are two major services lots of companies are looking at, especially given the number of natural disasters in 2005, and Ethernet data services eliminate some of the bottlenecks to make these work better.
What kinds of challenges are there in providing your services?
One of the most challenging things facing ColoServe today is the increase in electricity prices. As equipment becomes smaller physically, it is possible to fit more of them into the same space which then requires more power. For instance, a lot of the new types of high density blade servers have extremely high power requirements. That's why we are expanding data center in the next year and adapting it to the new power requirements.
What do you like best about what you do?
I love to walk in to our offices every day, right there on the raised floor of the data center. ColoServe is a fun and hectic place to work and one of the best things is getting to meet our customers. Many of them are start-up companies, and it is always interesting to learn about their business and all the various things they are using the Internet for. We have got customers who probably hadn't really used the Internet until a couple of years ago, and now they get thousands of visitors to their sites daily. Many of them now run their entire business on the Internet, and we run their entire Internet infrastructure, so it is a big responsibility but there is always something new and interesting. This industry is constantly changing and expanding, and that's what makes it so much fun.
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Media contact:
Michelle Garrett
Garrett Public Relations
Phone: 614-785-7110
Email: michelle@michellegarrett.com