Steel ORCA, based in Newtown, Bucks County, says it's
starting work Wednesday on a $650 million commercial data center at a former
Pfizer plant in Monmouth Junction, Middlesex County (NJ).
The center is 40 miles from both Philadelphia and New York,
where data can be shipped by phone- and cable-fiber-based connections "in
less than a millisecond," fast enough to attract financial, Internet
service and factory users, says Dave Crocker, Steel ORCA's chief executive and
chairman. "We're a carrier hotel; all the major (Internet) suppliers have
fiber through here." He says "hundreds" will work at the site
once it's built out.
Tyco and Dell Computer provide physical and data security,
respectively. Villanova University scholar Alfonso Ortega heads a National
Science Foundation-backed energy-efficiency project, based at the center, which
will focus on ways to recycle heat and power, since "data centers consume
2% of the world's electricity," which is a lot, says Crocker.
Privately-held Steel ORCA, backed by 75 investors, is led by
Crocker, a Holland, Bucks County software developer who formerly headed Octopus
Technologies (clients included Microsoft Windows; Octopus' intellectual
property is now part of EMC); CFO Paul Tufano CPA (he used to practice in
Texas); and COO Dennis Cronin, a veteran data center builder active in the 7x24
Exchange, a data-center industry group.
The plant is located on a 45 megawatt power grid and will
include backup solar, solid-oxide fuel cell, battery and other power sources. I
asked Crocker if the plant was near a rail line and a natural gas supply, two
of the purported selling points of the proposed Wolf data center at the
ex-Chrysler plant site by the University of Delaware in Newark Del. No, Crocker
told me: A lot of data clients want to be far from rail-line vibrations, and
gas lines require special protection against potential explosions, he said.
What's with the Steel ORCA name? "A lot of the original
locations we were looking at were ex-steel mills, and Orca sounds good in the
popular culture; we say it stands for
Ownership Responsibility Commitment Action," says ceo Crocker.
Source: Philly.com
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