SoftLayer has completed provisioning a second 10G connection in Seattle with backbone carrier Qwest. Having multiple 10G connections provisioned with Qwest and Internap, Seattle customers are now one hop away from seven IP backbone carriers that are part of the SoftLayer network.

class=lnk target=_blank>SoftLayer selected Qwest because of its status as the recognized bandwidth leader in the Northwest. “This was a mandatory step for us to take prior to building out our next Server Pod in Seattle. We know the level of redundancy and quality that our customers expect and we will not deliver anything less,” said George Karidis, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of SoftLayer.

SoftLayer has also started its Phase 2 of construction in Seattle to provide space for an additional 3,000 servers; Phase 1 was completely filled in less than three months from initial launch. Phase 2 will come on line in April. When fully built out, the SoftLayer’s Seattle Datacenter Pods will have capacity for more than 10,000 servers.

“We have had strong demand for our Seattle location and have fully utilized the initial 2,000 server capacity. The proximity of our datacenter to high capacity links to Asia has driven much of this demand,” explained Mr. Karidis. “We expect demand for access to the SoftLayer infrastructure to only continue to grow as we get closer to the Beijing Olympic Games later this year. We are a natural dropping off point for companies looking for on-demand IT infrastructure to support this global event.”

The SoftLayer datacenter in Seattle is only a short distance from the new Verizon-led consortium bringing an oceanic fiber landing that will provide up to 5.12 Tbps in bandwidth connectivity with Asia. This will be the shortest bandwidth route across the Pacific.