In December 2008, Sun opened the Broomfield, Colorado, datacenter which is used for development, engineering, test, and even to showcase Sun’s storage. Also, Sun’s mainframe attached storage and IBM mainframes are a significant part of this datacenter. Associated with this datacenter is a Customer Solution Center where you can visit to learn what is happening in Sun Storage or even perform a storage proof-of-concept. This datacenter replaces the old Louisville one which was home for StorageTek.

With the Broomfield datacenter, Sun took on the challenge of building a better datacenter to realize the benefits of more efficient, scalable, and green compute resources, and to clearly demonstrate how Sun's hardware, software, storage, services, and best practices expertise can reduce operating costs, increase business agility, and minimize the IT footprint.

I just did the tour of the data center. In addition to the impressive datacenter itself, I was extremely amazed with the magnitude and success of the move. The new data center uses 66% less floorspace, decreasing from 496,000 sq. ft. to 126,000 sq. ft. Also, the amount of raised floor decreased from 165,000 sq. ft. to 700 sq. ft. for the IBM mainframes. You can even see the IBM mainframes that are installed.

If you want, you can download the Broomfield datacenter success story.

You can also read more information or receive a more complete “virtual” tour of the new Broomfield facility.

I think it is quite an impressive datacenter but you be the judge.