DCF Show: Site Selection and Why It Matters in 2022

All around the globe, data center operators are facing challenges in finding enough land, power and water to support the rapid growth of cloud computing. As campuses become MegaCampuses, finding suitable real estate is becoming difficult. That’s why site selection has become one of the most important skillsets in the data center business.

On this week’s Data Center Frontier Show, we talk with Ernest Popescu, the Vice President for Global Site Development, Data Centers for Iron Mountain. Popescu has lengthy experience in hyperscale site development and capacity planning for Amazon Web Services and Facebook, but saw a unique opportunity in the growth of Iron Mountain Data Centers, which has been winning both enterprise and cloud deals. Popescu is also intrigued by the potential for tapping Iron Mountain’s global real estate footprint of more than 1,400 document to support edge computing.

Listen to today’s show:

Here’s a timeline of topics Ernest and I discuss on the podcast:

• 1:00 – Ernest’s Data Center Journey.
• 2:45 – Why data center capacity planning is difficult. “The past isn’t necessarily a good indicator of the future,” says Ernest.
• 5:30 – After working so much with hyperscalers, why Iron Mountain?
• 10:00 – Why site selection is such a hot topic in 2022.
• 12:45 – How about faster networks? Do they change any of the methodology around site selection.
• 16:00 – Edge computing, and why this is an opportunity for Iron Mountain.
• 23:00 – What Ernest likes best about this job.

Here are some links with more about the topics we discuss:

• Iron Mountain Raises Its Game with Hyperscale Wins, ITRenew Acquisition: Our April update on Iron Mountain Data Centers’ strategy for growth.
• Iron Mountain Signs 72 Megawatt Lease in Manassas: The largest lease in the company’s history, the deal reflects the the super-sizing of cloud deals and data center campuses across Northern Virginia.
• The 8 Trends That Will Shape the  Data Center Industry in 2022: The DCF annual forecast, which Rich mentioned in the podcast.

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