Data centers are getting a lot of attention in Ohio lately. Mega corporations like Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft plan to spend billions on sprawling sites. They’re expected to serve the ever-growing demand for cloud computing and virtual storage.
But about 15 years ago, a well-known Columbus-based business developed its own data center. Since then, it’s been serving small-to-mid-sized businesses in the area.
RackedSquared
The Wasserstrom Company started as a family-owned business in Columbus in 1902. The restaurant-supply company became one of the largest in the country and currently has two large divisions.
“They sell (small restaurant wares) to about 40% of the nationwide chains, and it's everybody who serves food," said Jason Hardy, the general manager of RackedSquared. "It can be a nursing home, it can be a cruise ship, a hotel, country club, food truck, you name it. If you're in the food service business, you know them, they're a supplier."
The company also manufactures large restaurant equipment.
“They will make salad bars like you see in grocery stores, they make booths, fryers, freezers, all your stainless steel-type equipment. So they will go in and you know custom build anything you need for your restaurant," Hardy said.
The business was growing and by 2010, they needed more space than their Front Street location allowed.
“They had an office there, the data center was up on the third floor. The floor was sagging and architects and engineers said don't invest in this, get your gear out of here,” Hardy said.
Wasserstrom tried outsourcing its data needs, but found it would be cheaper to start its own center.
The company bought an old AT&T building on East Spring Street near Grant Avenue in downtown Columbus.
“They were only going to use a fraction of the space that existed. The CIO at the time said, ‘why don't we take that extra space and turn into a revenue-generating business,’ and that's when RackSquared was formed," Hardy said.
The company brought in Hardy because of his background in managing technology products. He worked for CompuServe before going to RackSquared.
"High touch"
Hardy said the large data centers that are moving into central Ohio are “low-touch” operations, meaning they serve large companies that have internal tech departments to handle their own support.
“Their model is really... build out rows and rows of the same stuff and sell space,” Hardy said. “They just want an environment and equipment.”
But RackedSquared is the type of data center that small and mid-sized companies can take advantage of to grow their operations. Nickles Bakery, Compass Health Brands and a street-sweeping company are among the businesses that use the data center.
“We're very, you know, very, very high touch,” Hardy said, meaning that their specialists can help the customers.
Nickles Bakery became a customer because of a near disaster the company saved them from, according to Hardy.
Hardy says Rackedsquared found a niche in providing support for IBM Power, a system that Hardy said takes specialized knowledge to administer.
The bakery's IBM power server failed a few days before the July 4 weekend, one of the biggest weekends of the year for buns. The mainframe did everything from tracking orders to calculating how much ingredients the orders would require.
"It tracked yeast, flour... it was what kept things running. So they were doing manual calculations to keep the business running while they were trying to get their server back up and running," Hardy said.
The company looked for help and found it just a few miles away.
"They brought the server down here on a Friday. Within 36 hours, we had them back up and running and kind of saved the day," Hardy said.
Hardy said they've built the business by offering perks like one-on-one tech support expertise and access to technology that the companies couldn’t afford alone.
“They have someone retire and they say 'who's gonna manage this for me?' They can turn to us and we've got the experts that can manage it," Hardy said. "The hardware can be very expensive. So instead of buying another server, you know, we'll put you on ours and a lot of our customers, they don't need a full processor. So we will sell them a fraction of a processor.”
Keeping cool
And, they have the appropriate environment to support the equipment.
“We've got air conditioning, humidity control, power conditioning, fire suppression. It's a very secure, resilient environment that when you get a storm, our data center is not going to go down, everything is designed to be self-healing," Hardy said.
Josh Grabill, manager of the data center, gave WOSU a tour. Inside the center, forced air circulates, cooling the rooms.
“These static mats here help pick up the dirt, help keep as much dust down as possible. A lot of this equipment can run for years. I apologize for the white noise, when you're working down here for long periods of time, it can definitely affect your hearing," Grabill said.
The floors have copper filament in them to stop static electricity.
“If it's too dry in here in the wintertime, you get zapped. Computers don't like that. They can fry memory and destroy or damage the equipment," Grabill said.
A Halon gas system is set to suppress fire, instead of water.
“This gas bonds with the oxygen in the air, bringing it down to a level where fire won’t combust," Grabill said.
The center is full of redundancies and firewalls. Equipment has multiple power supplies. There are load balancers, generators and massive batteries.
Hardy said the system has fared well in Columbus, being tucked into a non-descript gray building in a neighborhood that’s been slowly filling up with other tech companies and colorful murals.
“We're probably a pretty quiet, pretty respectful neighbor that people don't even know we're here. We're the building with no windows and everybody wonders what we are," Hardy said.
