"Austin is a great place to launch this center because of the technological base and the presence of 800 of our employees in Austin, Houston and Dallas," Jim Howard, Verio's vice president of sales, tells GlobeSt.com. The company has leased 30,000 sf in the Met Center, located on E. Ben White Boulevard in southeast Austin.

The center offers businesses complete Internet services on a Tier One network, e-commerce packages, applications hosting and data backup and recovery. Verio's staff will provide 24-hour, on-call technical support. The data center also promises a secure place for businesses to house their equipment with regulated power and physical access monitored with a biometric hand scan to control entrance and exit.

The demand for data facilities like Verio's has increased over the past 18 months with centers opening throughout the world, Howard says. "Our customers are very educated on data services and power requirements," he says. "Then we also add the people and the technology."