Yahoo to Lease Digital Realty Data Center

Yahoo (YHOO) has signed a lease agreement with Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR) for a Turn-Key Datacenter, and intends the new facility to qualify for LEED Gold certification as a "green" data center. The two companies did not announce the exact location of the new facility, but said it would be in a Digital Realty facility in California.

Digital Realty recently purchased 50 percent ownership of a Santa Clara data center that is intended to qualify for LEED status, and also has turn-key space available in carrier hotels it owns in Los Angeles (600 W. 7th) and San Francisco (200 Paul Avenue).

"Yahoo is committed to being an environmentally responsible business," said Kevin Timmons, Vice President of Operations at Yahoo. "We build our datacenters based on a rigorous analysis of key components such as geographical location, climates, building materials, cost performance, and use of alternative-energy systems."

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program is administered by the U.S. Green Buildings Council, and is the national benchmark for the design and construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. There are only a handful of LEED-certified data centers to date, and last year Digital Realty became the first developer to earn a LEED gold certification for a data center in Chicago.

"We are very pleased to further our relationship with Yahoo! with this new Turn-Key Datacenter(TM) agreement," said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. "Yahoo! understands the value of green datacenters both in terms of the impact on the bottom line and its importance for corporate responsibility. It is great to work with a company that is taking such a forward-looking approach to its datacenter strategy."

Digital's Turn-Key Datacenter space is fully developed for data center use, allowing companies to accelerate their data center expansions. Turn-Key space typically uses a pod architecture that divides each property into compartmentalized data centers of between 8,000 and 12,000 square feet.