"Wall Street firms became motivated buyers of surplus data centers from bankrupt telcos and web hosts. Chapter 11 filings by WorldCom, Exodus, Metromedia Fiber Network and Global Crossing flooded the market with surplus data centers and telecom assets. Financial firms that bought or leased data centers outside New York in the past two years include the Bank of New York, Wachovia, Deutsche Bank, MBNA Corp., New York Life, MasterCard and Goldman Sachs. Dallas, Kansas City and St. Louis became the hottest markets for mission-critical facilities. […]
One challenge was real-time mirroring technology, which historically has limited the distance between primary and secondary data centers to about 60 miles. Software advances have helped overcome these distance limitations, improving the speed of mirroring technology and recovery times."