Globix – Thomas J. Ackermann

Built the 1st carrier-neutral SuperPOP datacenter in the heart of Silicon Valley for $20m.

Acting General Manager
Director Systems and Network Operations
November 1998 to April 1999

The California Globix Corporation – globix.com
Santa Clara (Silicon Valley), California

Globix’s main focus:
Being the largest ISP in the state of New York, the company started a spin-off in California to built the first pick-your-carrier “Super-POP” datacenter of its kind – in the heart of Silicon Valley across the Great America Amusement Park, to use this show-case data center for investors to raise the funds to build at least 20 more of these around the globe.

My role:
The mission was to build this datacenter from the concrete slab up, hire all staff, and finish it to a fully operating, turn-key solution as quickly as possible – “money is no object”. And perform all investor tours personally. I built Globix’s first state-of the-art Super-POP data center on 2807 Mission College Blvd in Santa Clara, and administrated the $20,000,000 budget, oversaw the construction process and internal (technical) build-out.

Built, staffed, and managed first $20 million “SuperPOP” second-generation data center for Globix
Developed & implemented operational business plan, then implemented for all future Globix data centers
Conducted all data center investor presentations and contributed to the raise of $600 million in capital

In detail:

Planned, built, and managed:
- Core network architecture and local integration,
- Fiber feeds and peering agreements,
- Power grid connections (Santa Clara City Power and PG&E)
Hired core technical and operational staff,
Planned and staffed 7×24 NOC coverage,
Built and staffed for professional services business model, which I developed for the company (applied to all Globix Super-POP data centers worldwide).
Consulted clients on co-location/internet presence including:
- eBay,
- Zadu,
- Network Appliance,
- Lante,
- Kinetics/US Filter,
- Gadzooks Networks,
- … and many others.
Presented the data center and professional services model to many investors, thus contributing to the successful funding by venture capital and institutional investors in excess of $600 million (see 2018 screenshots at the end of the gallery).

Two videos of current owner QTS are below.

In hindsight, I should have taken more pictures; at the time, however, I was so busy, and did not think much about documentation. I had just started with digital photography (so much more efficient than the ol’ film), but the available cameras were rather pitiful by today’s (2018) standards: I used a Nikcon Coolpix 100 (pictures at the end of the gallery) with very low resolution. With it, I could at least snap quick pictures: