Our client for this engagement was a mid-market data centre and hosting company who already had one regional data centre. They wanted to know where to look for their next location.
We developed an approach which used a variety of data sources. These included the location and sizes of potential customer businesses across the UK. We mapped this against the density and structure of connectivity options.
We determined with our client that a key requirement for their customers would be drive time. Most clients were managing their own equipment so proximity mattered.
Using the combined dataset we constructed an analysis which combined the density of certain sizes of business in target sectors and travel times.
Data centres need access to good comms, so we needed locations with a variety of providers where the distance from a Point of Presence (network connection point) to potential sites was not too far (connecting would often involve physically laying a cable – and digging is costed by distance (among other things).
Putting this together and running the various combinations, we first identified a series of regions. Then we drilled down to specific cities/towns and finally zones within towns. The last stage was more manual as data was not readily available.
In subsequent work for this client we investigated the viability of specific sites that were on the market…but that’s a story for another time.
