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As the colocation industry becomes commoditized, a premium offering with a high-level of touch gives larger companies — sometimes limited by more traditional models — back some of the data center control they lost, all while lowering TCO. This is the wholesale market Skybox Datacenters serves, and Schneider Electric is helping us do so.
We operate three mission critical facilities in Texas — two are located at Houston One, a 12.5 MW, 20-acre private campus. The other is Legacy One, a 25 MW, 21-acre campus in Dallas. Our core focus is on companies that need more than 1MW.
Schneider Electric’s approach aligns with our operating principles of transparency, customization and partnership. Power is notably one area into which we deliver transparency and, thereby control, to our customers. Every output and display we see, they can see in their portals as well. We give them the entire picture.
Typically, this type of business model would result in a higher TCO. However, our facilities are designed with direct power access built in. This capability can result in a 40 percent savings alone. The visibility also instills a sense of confidence in enterprise customers who may have otherwise been missing complete information in multi-tenant facilities.
From planned downtime, preventative maintenance and weather-related occurrences, it’s important that customers know exactly what is happening in their data centers — just as if they built and owned the facilities.
As we entered the colocation market, Schneider Electric was one of our first partners. Now, we’ve moved beyond just the transactional stage of buying infrastructure to relying on the Schneider Electric team for a deep understanding of our business model.
In fact, we often call on the Schneider Electric solutions architect and account manager to conduct deep dives with our operations and maintenance teams to help optimize data center performance, prepare for expansion or implement new solutions.
LEED Gold
A rarity for data centers, we are proud to have achieved LEED Gold at our Houston One campus — a certification that would not have been possible without the extremely efficient and environmentally-friendly Schneider Electric infrastructure.
We expect to expand beyond Texas in 2018, and we’ll count on Schneider Electric to help get us there. I share more about our work together in this video interview, and you can read even more details in our case study: Serving a Select Market through Premium, Mission Critical Data Centers.
About the Author:
Rob Morris is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Skybox Datacenters. He has completed over 50 megawatts of mission critical projects both nationally and internationally. His previous roles include U.S. Practice Leader for Cassidy Turley’s Data Center Solutions Group as well as Senior Associate to Cushman & Wakefield’s Data Center Advisory Group.
