Jun 26 2013
Time Warner Cable (TWC) today broke ground in Centennial, Colorado to begin construction on the expansion of National Data Center West, one of two centers of its kind for the company. The $85 million Data Center expansion will support the equipment necessary to deliver digital video and IP based services for Time Warner Cable’s core residential and business products.
“Every day we serve millions of customers across 29 states from Hawaii to Maine, and expansion of National Data Center West reaffirms our commitment to deliver an expanding array of products, services and content to our customers anywhere, any time and on any device,” says Mike LaJoie, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Time Warner Cable.
Time Warner Cable opened National Data Center East in Charlotte, NC late last year, and National Data Center West serves a nearly identical function to ensure Time Warner Cable services are always available nationwide. Construction on the additional building for National Data Center West will continue through late 2014, with the new facility scheduled to go online in January 2015. Including upgrades that have been made at the facility since 2011, investment in the entire project will top $141 million once complete.
By expanding National Data Center West, the facility in Centennial will add 75% more capacity, matching its capabilities to National Data Center East. Time Warner Cable will gain greater flexibility to add new digital products, faster speed to deploy digital products and services, and consistency with delivery and the customer experience.
A few key functions of both Data Centers include hosting the applications that support approximately 70 million residential emails sent per day, managing the billing records of more than 15 million customers and supporting backend applications delivered to Time Warner Cable employees. The centers also support core residential and commercial products and services including WiFi, High Speed Data, Voice, TV services on smart phones, and Time Warner Cable’s IntelligentHome home management offering.
"Our two National Data Centers serve as backups to one another to provide our residential and business customers with continuously available services, even in times of a major disruption,” said Jim Ludington, senior vice president of technology business operations, Time Warner Cable. "We’re excited to be extending and enhancing our Data Center here and expanding our operations in this area.”
There are currently 70 employees located within the current facility in Denver. Once the expanded National Data Center West project is complete, Time Warner Cable will add 25% more Engineering and Data Center Services resources so that the facility is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During the construction project over a 36 month period, the company is on track to employ approximately 400 jobs including all trades, equating to more than $11 million in generated local income. This investment is in addition to the raw materials the company plans to purchase locally as well.
Once constructed, the expanded facility for National Data Center West will be a 170,000 square foot facility that includes 1,600 racks of technical equipment and can support 6400 kilowatts (kW) of critical load. Time Warner Cable is working to achieve Silver LEED certification by achieving best-practice design in the categories of site, water, energy, material use, and environmental quality. The Denver area is a top choice for the Data Center due in part to the dry, cool air which will be utilized to naturally control temperatures in the facility a vast majority of the time, greatly cutting down on energy use.
More information about all Time Warner Cable programming, products and services, is available at www.twc.com.