Data Center Tours: Savvis and Netcetera

You're plenty familiar with the inside of your data center. But what does the other guy's data center look like? Several data center photo tours this morning provide a glimpse at facilities operated by Savvis and the UK's Netcetera:

Wall Street & Technology offers a photo gallery of the Savvis data center in Weehawken, N.J., just across the river from Manhattan, which focuses on "proximity hosting" for financial exchanges. Many trading firms operate automated algorithm-based trading, in which execution speed is critical and fractions of a second matter. Being close to an exchange's equipment is a priority for these firms. Savvis' colo space allows traders access to major financial exchanges. Security is also at a premium, as shown by the photos of man-trap security corridors and biometric access scanners.

Netcetera is part of the growing data center business in the Isle of Man, an island nation off the coast of Great Britain that actively promotes itself as an ideal environment for hosting Internet gambling businesses. The isle offers generous incentives that include zero income tax on e-gaming companies. Owen Cutajar provides some photos of Netcetera's new $20 million data center on the Isle of Man, which show the facility's generators, cooling, fire prevention and security infrastructure. The Netcetera site can accommodate 700 racks.