Birth of a Data Center

Birth of a Data Center

Liam Eagle: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

WHIR Magazine, Birth of a Data Center

Read the Digital Edition We been at this for a while now. Just about four years covering the Web hosting business, and I think we can say without exaggeration that we become a bit of a fi xture in that time.

Lately, I become more certain with all of the work we do that we are a part of a community. And I happy to say that we care about what our community thinks of us, and I even fi nd myself feeling, more often than not, that our community cares about what we think of it.

Our venturing into print is a way of fostering that connection and taking it further, putting our work directly into your hands.

I been looking forward to working in print since we first started batting the idea around more than a year ago, taken by curiosity, ambition, and probably a little vanity. Certainly, one thing about print is that it nice to see your name in print.

But the more relevant, and ultimately the more satisfying, effect of this project is it opens up new avenues to our coverage with its permanence, allowing us to tell stories that we might not have otherwise been able to completely capture.

One such story is our first cover feature, Karen Snider piece on the launch of EV1Servers second data center. While data centers stories can be painfully dull at times, filled with figures and rote repetition of the same few requirements,

Karen managed to fill her take with the feeling of the event, the excitement and pride in accomplishment that accompany such an undertaking and its outcome.

Similarly, Dennis McCafferty story about Savvis acquisition of Cable Wireless America assets through a bankruptcy auction could have been a dull counting of beans, a list of SEC fi lings and consequences, but he managed to access the intensity of what obviously was an intense affair.

Philbert Shih piece on Major League Baseball Advanced Media manages to convey a bit of the keen energy of a man who, I can vouch, really does care about his baseball. And Wayne Epperson security feature, too, invokes a genuine uneasiness at facing the unavoidable.