Wikimedia Foundation selects CyrusOne in Dallas as new data center

In October 2013, we launched a public request for proposals regarding a new data center location in the continental US for co-locating Wikimedia infrastructure. We’ve now concluded this process and selected the CyrusOne facility in Dallas/Carrollton.
Wikimedia’s primary data center is in Ashburn, Virginia, and we’ve been preparing to end our remaining hosting presence in Tampa, Florida (which had historical reasons: Florida is where Wikipedia grew up).
We were looking for a facility that can handle the full load of Wikimedia’s global traffic in case of an emergency (and that will handle partial load at all times), and will now build out our presence in CyrusOne with that goal in mind.
Selecting a new data center is not a decision we take lightly, as these relationships tend to last many years and are very important for Wikimedia’s site reliability. As part of this process, we evaluated more than 39 bids, conducted 18 site visits, and arrived at a shortlist of 3 vendors.

The CyrusOne bid met our key requirements at a very competitive price. It is a modern and large facility with a highly redundant and efficient power and cooling infrastructure. In addition, the state of Texas maintains an independent power grid, which may be beneficial in case of major power issues affecting our Ashburn facility.
We look forward to working with CyrusOne in years to come as we continue to increase reliability and responsiveness of Wikimedia’s sites and services, to provide free knowledge to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Mark Bergsma
Director of Technical Operations and Lead Operations Architect