Brightlio Blog

San Diego, known as “America’s Finest City,” is a prime location for colocation services. From its strategic Pacific Rim connection to its burgeoning talent pool, San Diego offers a compelling case for companies aiming to stay ahead in the technology race. This article explores why San Diego colocation is a strategic choice for businesses leveraging data center services to fuel their growth and resilience.

Join us as we explore the advantages of data centers in San Diego!

San Diego is a Technology Forward City

Most people recognize San Francisco as the tech center of California, but San Diego is a technology-forward city too. The city was honored with the Digital Cities Award in 2022, recognizing it’s use of technology to meet city goals. San Diego’s commitment to enhancing cyber-security and providing residences with positive digital experiences were reasons for the award. A tech-forward city attracts more infrastructure investment, leading to an improved market for data centers.

San Diego is home to several vital industries, allowing you to be close to customers by colocating there. The GDP of the greater San Diego-Carlsbad market was $295 billion in 2023, which is larger than the GDP of countries like Finland, New Zealand, and Greece. Technology companies, including Qualcomm, Nokia, Cricket Communications, Websense, and ESET, call the city home. In 2016 and 2017, the Center for American Entrepreneurship named San Diego one of America’s top ten cities for technology.

San Diego is a major hub for life sciences, healthcare, and biotechnology. Neurocrine Biosciences, Illumina, Scripps Research, and Salk Institute for Biological Studies all call San Diego home. Putting your data center private cloud, or edge computing deployment in San Diego means you are close to clients in this space.

Finally, San Diego has an extensive defense and military presence. It hosts the largest naval fleet in the world and has one of the only submarine shipyards in the western United States. Major defense contractors like General Atomics, Cubic, and NASSCO are headquartered here. These industries are hungry for technology services, and you could serve them from your data center here.

San Diego Occupies a Strategic Location

San Diego’s geographical position on the southern coast of California is not just scenic but strategically significant for businesses seeking global connectivity. Nestled closer to the Asia-Pacific region than most other major U.S. cities, it serves as a vital link between North American and Asian markets. This proximity reduces latency for trans-Pacific data traffic, a crucial factor for companies in finance, technology, and media, where milliseconds can impact operations and decision-making.

San Diego is also close to three of the top 10 data center markets in the United States: San Francisco / Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. It is also close to other growing data center markets like Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Denver.

Moreover, San Diego’s location along major fiber optic routes provides robust connectivity options for businesses. It acts as a gateway for international data flows, ensuring that the area’s colocation facilities offer local and global network connectivity. This global reach, combined with the city’s accessibility to major West Coast technological hubs, makes San Diego an ideal locale for businesses aiming for a presence in both the North American and Asian markets without compromising on data transfer speeds or connectivity reliability.

San Diego is also the closest city in California to Mexico. Mexico has a growing, tech-savvy population which is fueling the growth of data centers. By 2027, it’s expected that Mexico will have attracted at least $1 billion in investments for its data centers. If you want to connect with other facilities in Mexico or reach customers in Mexico, a San Diego data center is optimal.

San Diego Offers Lower Risks of Natural Disasters

One of the primary reasons for colocation is to ensure the uptime and availability of your infrastructure. This means choosing a data center that is less likely to be affected by natural disasters that could lead to downtime.

Earthquakes are one of the biggest potential causes of downtime for a colocation facility. While a significant fault line runs right through San Diego, it’s not nearly as active as other faults in the state. While the area has roughly 100 earthquakes per day, the chances of a major earthquake of 8.0 are lower than in Los Angeles or San Francisco. SnapNHD lists San Diego as the third safest city in California for earthquakes.

Another cause of data center outages is inclement weather like major storms, hurricanes, floods, and winter weather. Fortunately, San Diego has idyllic weather almost all the time. The city never gets snow or ice and experiences very little rainfall which is severe enough to cause flooding. Even though hurricanes and tropical storms can form in the Pacific, they rarely hit California. Only two tropical systems have hit California in over 100 years.

San Diego Has a Skilled Workforce

With a population of 3,298,634, San Diego is the second most populous city in California after Los Angeles. The city’s council puts a lot of effort into the quality of talents it produces annually. For example, it has a development workers program that helps workers improve the quality of skills and services they render to companies.

Furthermore, this merit system helps the city ensure all professionals have the necessary qualifications they need to operate in their fields. As such, data centers in San Diego can collaborate with the city to access the best talents in the region. 

In addition to this program, the city is home to many top universities like the University of California San Diego, the University of San Diego, and San Diego State University. These institutions provide a steady supply of talented data center management and computer science professionals. 

With the city’s booming professional industry, data centers and businesses located in San Diego can access the professionals they need to support their colocation requirements.

Recommended San Diego Data Center Options

San Diego has 17 colocation providers, so you will likely find a site that meets your needs and budget. There are also 99 network connectivity providers, including dark fiber, lit fiber, cloud connectivity, and SD-WAN services. These provide options to connect to your customers, other data center locations, and preferred public cloud providers.

Here are two San Diego data center options Brightlio recommends:

Cogent

Cogent offers two data centers in San Diego: One at 9530 Towne Centre Drive and another at 525 B Street in downtown San Diego. Together, they offer 15,000 square feet of data center space.

Why we like Cogent San Diego:

• Cogent offers cost-effective data center services and connectivity.
• They offer a national network of carrier-neutral data centers, including in locations like Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and New York.
• Partial rack colocation options available.
• Cogent also offers other services, including internet, VPN, and optical wavelengths.

LightEdge

LightEdge operates two San Diego data centers. Their Lightwave data center is located at 9305 Lightwave Avenue. This facility, built to Department of Defense specifications, offers 80,000 SF of data center space. It offers smaller footprints starting at 13 RU, up to private cages and suites. They recently invested $19 million in facility upgrades, including fire suppression, power, and cooling upgrades.

Their Tech Center location is in the San Diego Tech Center at 9725 Scranton Road. It is a 19,000 SF facility that provides access to cloud services via LightEdge’s MPLS network.

Why we like it:

• Two convenient locations to choose from.
• They offer multiple compliance certifications including SOC 2.
• LightEdge offers a national footprint for customers needing larger deployments. Other facilities are located in Austin, Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha, Phoenix, and Raleigh.
• Direct connections to AWS and Microsoft Azure.
• Ample onsite parking and client equipment staging areas.

San Diego Colocation Pricing

San Diego colocation pricing starts at $99 monthly for 1U single server colocation with 100 Mbps of bandwidth. 2U to 4U options are available between $175 and $325 monthly. Pricing for a data center rack in San Diego starts at about $850 per month. Pricing for VPS hosting services starts at $25 per month.

If you provide Brightlio with your needs and budget, we can negotiate data center pricing in San Diego for you at no cost or obligation.

Final Thoughts

San Diego, CA is one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, and also an excellent location for your data center. A tech-forward location close to major industries, proximity to other strategic markets, and a decreased risk of natural disasters are all reasons that San Diego data centers should be on your shortlist.

How Can Brightlio Help with San Diego Colocation?

Are you interested in pursuing a San Diego colocation facility? Brightlio can help. We are a telecommunication broker and data center consultant. We help you find the best colocation solution for your needs and budget. Whether you are looking for single server colocation or a data center suite, Brightlio can help. We also schedule tours of data center locations for you.

Brightlio is vendor-neutral. We have a network of vetted, global providers. We’ll give you our honest, expert opinion on each option so that you can make the best decision for your business. We believe in building long-lasting relationships through years of mutually shared success with our clients. 

We are also experts in network connectivity, SD-WAN, and cloud solutions, allowing us to offer you a complete solution for your data center needs. Finally, we offer Unified Communications services.

We would love to hear from you if you need pricing for colocation services. Get started with Brightlio today!