Report: Twitter to Partner With C7 in Utah

Twitter will partner with C7 Data Centers on its new data center in Salt Lake City, according to local media. C7 is a regional data provider specializing in the Utah market, where it operates two facilities in Lindon and one apiece in Salt Lake City and Orem. The company is not commenting on the scope or exact location of the new Twitter data center, which was announced earlier this week.

C7's involvement in the Twitter project was reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. The company was founded as Center 7, but changed its name to C7 after its acquisition of another local provider, TierFour, in early 2009. The company's customers include Answers.com and the UK2 web hosting group. Along with its colocation, bandwidth and managed service offerings, C7 offers disaster recovery and remote backup services.

State officials said Twitter has not applied for tax incentives, but Gov. Gary Herbert said Twitter’s presence "will further contribute to the development of critical mass in our software and technology economic cluster." Twitter is the fourth high-profile data center project to locate in the Salt Lake City area in recent years, following the lead of eBay, Oracle Corp. and the NSA.

Twitter currently manages its infrastructure through a managed hosting agreement with NTT America, which has cited Twitter’s growth as a driver in the expansion of its data center network. In April Twitter announced plans to build a data center of its own. On Wednesday it provided additional details on the Twitter Engineering blog.

C7 Data Centers CEO Nathan Hatch has been a frequent contributor to the Industry Perspectives feature at Data Center Knowledge, sharing his insights on reducing power costs, SAS70 audits and PCI compliance.