On Monday this week we passed a major milestone – we received approval from the Duluth City Council for the JOBZ program.

So, what is JOBZ anyway? JOBZ (pronounced job-zee) is a state sponsored program that tries to bring jobs and business to areas that are economically distressed. Most of the JOBZ zones fall in more rural areas where there are not many jobs. The program is currently set to go through 2015.

The benefits of JOBZ can be great for a business. The state waives sales taxes on purchases for the location and charges real estate taxes on land only. There are also income tax benefits and employment tax benefits. The benefits will allow companies to be competitive and pass these savings unto their customers. Without these types of benefits, companies would charge higher rates to recoup the costs of building in these economic development areas or forego expansion entirely.

Why is the JOBZ program in the paper so much? The state auditors found areas of concern with the program. There have been large companies building in areas with the benefits and the not hiring the people they said they would. Some businesses would have expanded even if they didn’t receive the benefits. The auditors are concerned about the potential lack of accountability and oversight.

But, there have also been many success stories which have helped rural communities greatly. On the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) website there is a list of completed deals. The total jobs created so far is 5,140 and the capital invested is approximately $723 million.

The VISI datacenter will provide needed technology infrastructure and jobs for Duluth. Apex, the economic development group for the area, met with business leaders and asked what the area needed most. The consensus was that they needed a data center. Many businesses house their computers in their own facilities and lack the redundancy that is needed to meet the IT needs of businesses today. Apex believes that the project will serve as a catalyst for future industrial technology development in Duluth and will attract other tech companies and jobs to the area.

So, we passed the first hurdle – the Duluth City Council voted unanimously in favor of our JOBZ request. Now we will have to get through the state and county approvals. If all goes well, we will purchase the land and start building our new data center in the coming months.

It’s official.  After several months of searching, VISI has purchased a 50,000 square foot facility in Eden Prairie for its new headquarters and data center.  VISI will be located in what is known as the Golden Triangle business district, a prestigious part of Eden Prairie that is home to Compellent, Digital River, Fingerhut Direct Marketing and ShopNBC.

The new Eden Prairie headquarters – an approximately 50,000 square foot building located at 10290 70^th Street West, Eden Prairie, MN 55344 – quadruples the size of VISI’s previous headquarters and provides room to build a world-class data center.  Construction on VISI’s new offices will begin immediately and the move-in date is scheduled for May 1^st, 2008.

Read Eden Prairie Press Release

I’ve been hearing from vendors lately touting their green initiatives. Chip makers are telling us about their green processors and storage vendors are giddy about their green drives. It’s mostly marketing hype. Now don’t get me wrong; I am willing to consider all things green (although I prefer the color blue). But what these vendors are really doing is reducing the increasing power requirements of their devices. It is similar to what legislators in Minnesota call a “budget cut”. Oh, the power requirements of these devices will increase — just not as quickly.

I don’t mind this type of green thinking because I’m a big fan of efficiency. If you can squeeze more processor cycles out of the same number of electrons, more power to you (pardon the pun). But don’t try to convince me that my business or my data center is greener as a result. Data centers chew up enormous amounts of power and the power requirements are only going to increase.

Politicians are pushing for greener power production in our state. They have even suggested putting what could be considered tariffs on power generated by neighboring states. I can’t imagine a better way to hurt business — especially technology business — in Minnesota. Instead of tarrifs, goverments could be doing more to promote green technologies. If I’m Google am I going to build a datacenter in Minnesota or Iowa? Oops, that question has already been answered. The bottom line is that power is as important to a technology company as roads are to a trucking company. If we need technology to solve the energy problems of the future, why are we planning to choke technology development by increasing power costs?

On November 20th, we took over the VISI offices in St. Paul to shoot a TV commercial.  The ad pokes fun at the ‘lax’ security that businesses often encounter when hosting their servers from their own offices.  The ad was produced by John Empson with Broadcast & Design Group and directed by Michael Kurtz. The commercial is set to air mid-January.

I put together a behind-the-scenes look at the production complete with out-takes, actor interviews and thoughts from the director.

Did anyone watch HE-MAN growing up?  Well, in each episode, there came a point where protagonist, Prince Adam, would find himself responding to some perilous situation whereby he would raise up his sword and say “… I have the power!” thus transforming him from a mild mannered — wait, wrong super hero — from a careless and worry free prince into HE-MAN, the most powerful man in the universe.  Although I can’t say I’ve seen any episodes recently, the quote here strikes awfully close to home.  No we don’t claim to be the most powerful company in the universe, but power is becoming a hot topic among those who operate data centers and directly impacts those who host servers in data centers.

Everywhere you look you see companies proclaiming their latest power-efficient goods.  Configured a Dell 2950 on Dell’s website recently?  You’re warmly greeted by a “NEW - Energy Smart Server” option.  Among the major chip makers, Intel and AMD, we’ve seen marketing messages migrate from a Gigahertz race, to a raw performance race (example: AMD Athlon 2200+ did not have a clock speed of 2.2 Ghz but performed like an Intel chip clocked at 2.2 Ghz), to a performance-per-watt race.

So how does this affect you and me, and what’s VISI doing about it?  For starters, the cost of power is rising sharply and hitting us right where it counts - in the pocket book.  It used to be that physicial cabinet space in the data center was the most expensive line item on the invoice.  Today, the cost of power is giving that “cabinet space” line item a run for its money!  Some data centers are struggling to even supply the necessary power customers demand.

In order to ensure that we don’t fall victim to lack-of-sales-from-no-power-to-give syndrome (sometimes known as LOSFNPTG), VISI is pleased to announce we have purchased and installed a fourth UPS in our Saint Paul Data Center.  With the addition of this new UPS, VISI has more than tripled our UPS capacity in the past 12 months.

Want to see what all this power looks like?  We’d be happy to give you a tour of our facility — just let us know.