Brightlio Blog

If you are looking for your next data center, San Diego may be your ideal location. Proximity to essential industries, a strategic location adjacent to key markets, and less seismic risk than Los Angeles and San Francisco are all reasons San Diego should be on your colocation shortlist.

If you have more questions about San Diego colocation or are interested in pricing for San Diego data center services, Brightlio would love to hear from you.

The Benefits of the San Diego Data Center Market

San Diego offers a number of advantages for colocation. Let’s explore them together here.

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. San Diego was honored with the Digital Cities Award in 2022, recognizing San Diego’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 in San Diego. The GDP of the greater San Diego-Carlsbad market was almost $268B in 2021, giving a larger GDP than countries like Chile, New Zealand, and Greece.

Technology companies, including Qualcomm, Nokia, Cricket Communications, Websense, and ESET, call San Diego 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 or edge computing deployment in San Diego means you are close to customers in this space.

Finally, San Diego has an extensive defense and military presence. San Diego 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 in San Diego.

San Diego is in a Great Location for Colocation

San Diego is a great location; we don’t mean the beautiful weather and beaches. San Diego is close to three of the top 10 data center markets in the United States: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. It is also close to other growing data center markets like Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Denver.

A wealth of fiber connectivity options, and low latency, means that you can target customers in these markets from your San Diego data center. Additionally, if you are serving latency-sensitive applications or customers, San Diego can be an excellent edge colocation site for companies whose primary data center is in another nearby region.

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, San Diego is an ideal location for your data center.

Less Earthquake Risk in San Diego Means Less Risk to Your Data Center

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 San Diego 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.

Beautiful Weather Improves Uptime for San Diego Colocation

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.

Wildfires are a concern in San Diego, however. These primarily affect areas closer to undeveloped brush. Ask the colocation provider you are evaluating about the risk of wildfire in their location. Brightlio is also happy to help uncover a site’s relative risk of downtime from wildfire.

San Diego Has Many Data Centers To Choose From

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.

Intangibles for San Diego Data Centers

Let’s face it. You will need to visit the data center from time to time to install and upgrade infrastructure. If so, you might as well go somewhere great.

San Diego is a fantastic city with ideal weather almost 365 days per year. It was rated #1 in U.S. News & World Report’s “Most Fun Places to Live in the U.S.” for 2021. Beautiful beaches, fantastic hotels and restaurants, Sea World, Balboa Park, and more all mean you will have plenty to see and do in San Diego when not in the data center.

Final Thoughts

San Diego 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?

Brightlio is a telecommunication broker and data center consultant. We help you find the best colocation solution for your needs and budget.

Our services are free to you. The service provider pays us a commission if you choose one of our recommended services. The commission does not impact your cost.

We are also 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 customers. 

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 for the San Diego market, as well.

We would love to hear from you if you need pricing for colocation services in San Diego or other markets. Get started with Brightlio today!