Digital Realty to Build NetApp Facility in Oregon

Digital Realty Trust will build a custom data center for storage specialist NetApp in Hillsboro, Oregon under a recently-signed build-to-suit agreement. The agreement is notable because NetApp has previously built its own data centers, including a highly-efficient facility in North Carolina that was the first data center to receive the Energy Star rating.

NetApp (NTAP) is a leading provider of storage and data management solutions. Under the terms of the build-to-suit agreement, Digital Realty (DLR) acquired a 5.1 acre development site in the Hillsboro Enterprise Zone's North Industrial Area with power and connectivity in place. It will build a 55,000 square foot building that will include 18,250 square feet of technical space, with 4.5 megawatts of IT power capacity for high-performance computing. Construction of the facility will occur in multiple phases, with the first phase scheduled for completion in August 2012.

Hillsboro Tech Corridor

The site for NetApp's new data center is located in Hillsboro's tech corridor along Evergreen Parkway in the city's North Industrial Area of the Hillsboro Enterprise Zone. Intel operates a huge technology campus nearby, and the local climate in northwest Oregon is ideal for air-side economization, allowing data center operators to use outside air to cool servers for up to 10 months out of the year.

Oregon also has no sales taxes, which makes it attractive to data center projects, especially in the wake of the Washington state legislature's failure to extend tax breaks that boosted data center development in the state.

"We are very pleased to welcome NetApp and Digital Realty to Hillsboro," said Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey. "Our infrastructure and attractive business environment have made Hillsboro the home to many well-known tech companies and their data centers."

"Our objective for this new facility was to obtain the most efficient and cost-effective data center possible, in the shortest time feasible," said Thom Bryant, vice president of Workplace Resources at NetApp. "Furthermore, NetApp already has a longstanding relationship with Oregon, and building this data center further strengthens our ongoing momentum and investment within the state."

Build-to-Suit Gains Traction

NetApp is the second company that has previously built sophisticated data centers to turn instead to a custom build from Digital Realty, following the lead of Equinix, which hired Digital to build a new facility in northern Virginia.

"Our Build-to-Suit data center solution meets the specialized technical requirements of customers such as NetApp, while providing the customer with all the control of a do-it-yourself facility, and without the risks associated with a large-scale, capital-intensive data center construction project," said Brent Behrman, Senior Vice President, Sales at Digital Realty. "We are very pleased to be partnering with NetApp on this important project. We look forward to delivering the facility, which will play a critical role in the growth of their business."