Fortune 500, Inc. 500, government as well as small to medium size clients count on 1102 GRAND every day for their colocation needs.  I enjoy reaching out to our clients regularly to see how their businesses are growing and changing, and how 1102 GRAND can assist with any challenges they may have.

Adam Ward, CTO of Admo.net, took a few minutes to update me on how things are going for his company and I wanted to share them with you.

Adam, tell me about Admo.net:

In 1998 Admo.net began offering shared hosting to the masses. We quickly learned that it wasn’t all about servers and technology. Sure, it’s very important for us to be prepared, knowledgeable and technical; but what’s really important is people. It’s the reason we’re in business-to provide world class service and support to real people around the world. We realize that you need someone to speak to you on a human level and to understand your business needs to reach your goals. We understand people and we believe that is what makes us different.

What products or services do you currently offer your clients?

Admo.net offers an assortment of enterprise-class services including offsite backup, dedicated servers, collocation by the rack unit, virtual private data center, virtual private servers, reseller and shared hosting. We also offer supplemental consulting services including on-site VMware consulting for new and existing environments.

Where have you seen the most growth over the last year?

In the last year we have had the most growth in our highly-scalable cloud solution and in our DDoS mitigation services.

Why did you choose 1102 GRAND to collocate a portion of your IT infrastructure?

Admo.net chose 1102 GRAND because they are Kansas City’s premier carrier-neutral facility. Their prices are reasonable, and we have a world class team committed to our success. 1102 Grand delivers the ability to connect to any provider in the metro area and this is key to our success as a hosting provider.

If a company wanted to utilize your services, how would they get in touch with you?

Please get in touch with us on our website at www.admo.net, via email at sales@admo.net or just give Adam a call direct at 816.866.0123.

Thanks Adam for taking the time to share with us a little about your business.  We wish you continued success.  As always, if you would like to schedule a tour to check out 1102 GRAND, or have any general questions feel free to send me an email at Greg@1102Grand.com or give me a call at 816-213-7731.

1102 GRAND is thrilled to have the opportunity to be the host sponsor for
the upcoming KCnext IT networking event. We firmly believe that when you
bring together the best and the brightest in the IT community to exchange
ideas, meet new contacts and help connect the dots, good things are sure
to follow. We have witnessed the power of networking at this level first
hand and cannot wait until the next KCnext IT Networking Event on April 26, at
LIVESTRONG Sporting Park from 5:00-8:00 p.m. There will be plenty of food
and beverages as well as some excellent giveaways and facility tours.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Learn more about this event and register here.

As 1102 GRAND continues to grow at a rapid pace, I wanted to take a moment to share with you a couple pictures I took of our new private cage colocation area.  In this new space we have designed the cages modularly to accommodate different sizes of colocation footprints.  Typically there are four 12’x12’ cages, but we can configure the space to a 12’x24’, 12’x36’ or even a 12’x48’ space.  This allows us and our clients the flexibility to have the space to expand in a contiguous fashion or to accommodate anticipated growth.  There is also a 12’x22’ space available in this area.

This space is similar to our other colocation areas within our SSAE16 Type 2 facility.  Clients will find multi-factor security authentication, gas-based fire suppression, N+1 HVAC, UPS and generator supported power feeds, the ability to connect to any of the 30+ carriers/providers in our Meet Me Room, along with a multitude of other features.

In addition to this expansion, we have begun work on two other floors within our building for anticipated colocation/datacenter growth.  If you are in the area and want to schedule an appointment for the “GRAND” tour, feel free to email me at Greg@1102Grand.com.  I welcome the opportunity to share what we have been building here.

I would be willing to bet if you asked ten people what their definition of cloud computing technology is, you would probably get ten different answers. There are a number of reasons why this is the case and there are quite a few levels to understand. There are a number of ways we are seeing our clients at 1102 GRAND develop their cloud strategies. The two we have seen to be the most popular are:

1) Clients have their own private cloud, utilizing their infrastructure that physically resides in private rack or cage space at 1102 GRAND. Some are building out their private cloud for internal uses and others are offering private cloud as a service to their customers.

2) Clients are developing a hybrid cloud approach, utilizing private cloud for their sensitive information and using the public cloud for other data.

I ran across an article, “Forget Public Cloud or Private Cloud, It’s All About Hyper-Hybrid,” by Thor Olav of CIO, that dives deeper into the hybrid approach.

Cloud is certainly not a one size fits all approach, and each company will have to decide what will work best for their overall strategy. If you want to be in touch with companies that are offering private cloud services at 1102 GRAND, I would be happy to make the connection for you. Also, if you would like to check out 1102 GRAND, let me know at greg@1102grand.com.

Also, come and join us at Centriq’s Cloud Intelligence Conference – April 12, 2012 in Overland Park. Learn more and register here!

Thank you to Processor Magazine for featuring Kansas City data center 1102 GRAND as a “Company to Watch” in the Jan. 13 issue. Three reasons 1102 GRAND was chosen as a Company to Watch are:

• Location of the colocation facility
• Housing a large network of providers for customers
• One-on-one attention to customers without a middle man

All of us at 1102 GRAND truly appreciate the publicity Processor Magazine has given our company.

Read the article: Colocation on a Grand Scale

If location is a defining factor in selecting a colocation provider, 1102 Grand (www.1102grand.com) has a leg up on the competition. Located in Kansas City’s Financial District, the company’s building is a hub for numerous cross-country fiber routes passing through 1102 Grand’s carrier neutral Meet Me Room—a fact that makes 1102 Grand able to provide customers strategic advantages other colocation providers in the region cannot.

“The building serves as a major hub for voice and data traffic in the region by providing a facility with the necessary infrastructure for carriers, service providers, and commercial customers to conduct network-related business together reliably and cost-effectively,” says Greg Elliott, director of business development at 1102 Grand. 1102 Grand is situated directly on Kansas City’s major metropolitan fiber ring, leading top-light telecommunications companies (Level 3, Verizon Business, and AT&T included) and regional carriers, service providers, and enterprise customers to build and operate data centers, nodes, and/or POPs (Points of Presence) at 1102 Grand.

“These tenants then extend their desired connectivity media (fiber, coax, copper, etc.) into our carrier-neutral Meet Me Room to interconnect with one another and provide services to other entities,” Elliott says.

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Last Thursday I had the privilege of participating in the KCnext Fall IT Networking Event at the College Basketball Experience.  What a great experience it was!  Where else could one be involved with conversations about mobile technology trends, good places to find venture capital, the challenges of starting your own business or where to find datacenter space?  The list goes on and on.

There were connections being made all over the place, with sponsor provided prizes being given away via drawings.  If all of this was too much to handle, people could slip away and participate in one of the many interactive games that the CBE has available. 

Thank you to everyone (attendees and sponsors) who made the KCnext Fall IT Networking Event a fantastic experience!  

Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, with Travis Holt, principal of Brush Creek Partners, at the KC Next technology event last Thursday.

Go to www.kcnext.com to learn more about upcoming events with updates to come soon.

I hope everyone has a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving!

I recently attended an ACCP (Association of Customer Contact Professionals) meeting where Michael Amigoni, COO of Dibon ARO BPO, gave a fascinating presentation on the virtual call center. Over 15 years ago, Michael had the vision to tap the power of the new “distributed workforce” operational model to increase his customers’ service quality and lower delivery cost. He co-authored a book, “Managing the Telecommuting Employee,” sharing best practices to help virtual call centers “maximize profit and productivity.” Michael shared with us excerpts from his book and interesting and sometimes funny real life examples of what to do and what not to do when running a virtual call center. Michael gave a comparison ROI between a regular bricks and mortar call center and the virtual call center. The total savings for the virtual call center was about $1,200,000 annually! He also shared with the group that two of the best things he ever did since getting involved in the contact center industry was moving their datacenter to 1102 GRAND and migrating to the inContact Software Platform. By moving their datacenter to 1102 GRAND and switching to inContact, it freed him and his team to focus on their core business, customer service. Now, on the datacenter side, they don’t have to worry about redundant cooling units, power feeds, battery backups, generator service, etc., they leave all that to us at 1102 GRAND. I was able to purchase Michael’s book at the event. To preview and purchase “Managing the Telecommuting Employee” go to http://bit.ly/rYZmNK. Great stuff, thanks Michael!

I encourage all who currently own or run a contact center, or are interested in the contact center industry, to come and check out an ACCP meeting. ACCP is a professional, non-profit association whose members represent customer contact organizations and the vendors who support them. The membership consists of organizations of all sizes and from a variety of industries. They have first and third-party focused members including telemarketing, call centers, collections, customer service facilities, help desks, client retention, etc. To learn more about ACCP and upcoming events go to http://associationccp.com/Home.aspx or give me a call at 816-213-7731.

As some of you may have heard or seen, 1102 GRAND is experiencing considerable growth within our collocation business. We would like to thank our existing and new customers for their ongoing business and support as well as all of our friends in the community that keep sending new companies our way. As a result of the growth, 1102 GRAND has been building out data center spaces non-stop this year, and this will continue for at least six more months. The first phase of the 9th floor is scheduled to open November 1st, and is already fully leased. In addition, the 5th floor that opened October 1st has just three cages remaining. This past week our crews started work on another 8500 square feet of caged collocation space that will be completed Q1 2012.

Greg Elliott, director of business development at 1102 GRAND, said that collocation growth has come from a wide range of industry verticals. “Heavy growth is coming from hosting and cloud providers as well as continued demand from healthcare IT companies. In addition to regional customers, the trend of east and west coast customers looking at Kansas City for more affordable data center solutions is contributing to the expansion,” said Elliott.

If you would like to schedule time to see the new spaces or tour the building, contact Greg Elliott at 816-213-7731 or Greg@1102Grand.com.

Recently, I helped organize a group called The Right Money at the Right Time at the Right Terms. SITAKS (Regional Software and Information Technology Trade Association) hosted an engaging panel discussion on raising business capital. The panel shared how growing businesses secure the right money at the right time at the right terms and discussed what the latest trends are in our local business ecosystem.

The panel discussion featured experts in capital-raising and shared their tips on:

What terms & conditions investors & angel groups look for.
Part 1

Part 2

DOs and DON’Ts on what should be included in both a pitch and a presentation.
Part 1

Part 2

One successful entrepreneur-turned-investor’s personal experience on what works and what does not in connecting with investors.
Panelists included: Toby Rush, founder and president of Rush Tracking Systems; Michele Weigand, managing partner of Focused Perspective; and Dr. Joel Wiggins, president and CEO of the Enterprise Center of Johnson County and executive manager of Mid-America Angels Investments. Entrepreneur Davyeon Ross of Digital Sports Ventures moderated the discussion.

To learn more about future SITAKS educational and/or networking events feel free to contact Greg Elliott – SITAKS membership committee chairman or go to www.sitaks.com .

Many thanks to newly opened Regus office space for allowing us to use their impressive facility (fractional office space) on the Plaza. Contact Danielle Torneden (Danielle.torneden@regus.com) or Tara Dyer (tara.dyer@regus.com) for more information on the Regus facility.

I ran across this article on CIOInsight.com on the prediction that hardware spending will reach $99 billion this year. At 1102 GRAND we are definitely seeing evidence of this spending on a daily basis. We are watching customers moving gear into newly built out collocation rooms within our building, as well as existing customers adding new or upgrading existing equipment. The growth appears to span many different verticals, but web hosting, managed IT service companies, healthcare IT and call centers are definitely the front-runners this year at 1102 GRAND.

Gartner: Data Center Hardware Spending to Hit $99B in 2011

Who says the future of IT is all in software? All software has to run on some sort of processor, physical or virtual, and all those have to run on something you can see and touch. And with the continuing deluge of data pouring into servers and storage arrays, there is no shortage of processors happening anytime soon.

Thus, IT hardware sales are going nowhere but up and to the right. Gartner has some new numbers that back up this trend.

The industry researcher is projecting that worldwide data center hardware spending will reach $98.9 billion by the end of calendar year 2011, up 12.7 percent from $87.8 billion in 2010, according to a report it published Oct. 13. Data center hardware spending is forecast to total $106.4 billion in 2012 and surpass $126.2 billion in 2015.

Data center hardware spending includes servers, storage and enterprise data center networking equipment.

Back to Pre-Downturn Levels
“Worldwide data center hardware spending will finally reach and surpass 2008 levels,” said Jon Hardcastle, research director at Gartner. “Growth in emerging regions particularly Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries) is balanced by continued weakness relative to pre-downturn levels in Japan and Western Europe.”

Storage is the main driver for growth, Hardcastle said. “Although only a quarter of data center hardware spending is on storage, almost half of the growth in spending will be from the storage market,” he said.

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