1st Point Communications is Helping the Cloud Take Shape

With the emergence of the cloud as the way that enterprises deploy their IT infrastructure, the role of the data center is changing quite a bit.

“The role of the data center as a service provider obviously is changing substantially,” noted Erik Levitt, co-founder of 1^st Point Communications, during a recent interview with TMCnet at ITEXPO (News - Alert) Las Vegas.

“Traditionally, people have looked at data centers as the place where they’re going to put their systems, provide space and power,” he noted. Internet was added as a service over the last couple of years. “But now, as corporate entities and enterprises are looking at the stability, the reliability and the security of various cloud offerings, they are looking at outsourcing those needs to the data centers at the next level.”

With the cloud, however, Internet connectivity and the expectations for the data center have increased. The cloud is the future of the data center.

“We feel the evolution of the data center is to be the cloud service provider at varying levels,” noted Levitt. “One level could just be providing dedicated servers to clients so that they can run their cloud software on a dedicated system environment. But also to be able to provide public and private cloud services as well.”

With that in mind, 1^st Point Communications recently announced the rollout of its New York metro fiber network after a year of construction. The fiber network will offer dense-wave connectivity across that network to most of the New York metro area. It will include 111 8^th Ave, 60 Hudson Street, 85 10^th Ave and a number of other key datacenters.

“Those are very important locations, and our price point starting for a 10 gig wave is actually $700 per month, which is extremely competitive in the industry, and protected 10 gig waves starting at under $1,000 a month,” he noted. “That network is essentially already selling, and we have several strands of fiber on each path available.”

Several elements will be key for data centers going forward, including network functions virtualization and efficient power. But perhaps none will be more important than good connectivity.