Bluebird Network, a Midwest telecommunications company, recently announced plans for a major expansion of its Underground Data Center located in Springfield, Missouri. The expansion will enable the facility to more comprehensively meet and support the needs of its rapidly growing enterprise and cloud service customer base. This project serves to underscore the company’s enduring commitment to increasing value for its customers and delivering enhanced reliability and capabilities.
Not only will this expansion add 11,500 square feet of white space, bringing the data center’s white space total to 29,000 square feet, it will also include significant mechanical, electrical and generation capabilities. This will bring the data center, which is carved out of solid limestone and resides 85 feet below ground, to full Tier 3 capabilities.
“Bluebird Network is proud to provide this additional data center space and capacity to perfectly align with the business and hosting community,” said Michael Morey, Chief Executive Officer, Bluebird Network. “This data center was purposefully built for the convenience of business communities in the region, and we are closer than you think to Kansas City, Joplin, Columbia, Northwest Arkansas and Tulsa.”
Major elements of the expansion include:
- Individual underground concrete building structures to house the UPS, switchgear and paralleling switchgear functions.
- Additional on-site/underground generating capabilities totaling 6MW.
- A 3rd primary metered electrical grid connection.
- Dual UPS systems employing the latest lithium-ion battery technology.
- Full implementation of Bluebird’s Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) platform to continuously monitor all operations.
- 100 percent diverse critical power paths and components from generation to customer power tails.
- Increased fuel storage capacity by over a factor of 4.
These improvements allow Bluebird to easily adapt to advancements across cloud computing, the hosting environment, artificial intelligence and blockchain capabilities. This further supports Bluebird’s mission of providing customers with the operational benefits of a purpose-built, highly reliable and advanced data center with the added advantage of the inherent security benefits of an underground facility.
Customer benefits of this finished expansion include measured power usage for cooling and hardware, hot/cold aisle containment, private colocation suites, Level 1 technical support and, for larger customers, attractive wholesale kW power rates. When combined with Bluebird’s advanced Midwest fiber network, metro fiber build-outs in six Missouri cities and direct wave services, this step enables Bluebird to offer advantageous data center and network solutions to customers.
While the expansion is set to be completed in mid-2020, space in the underground data center is available now. To inquire further or schedule a tour, please contact Sales@BluebirdNetwork.com. To learn more about Bluebird Network, please visit www.bluebirdnetwork.com.
