THE RESOURCES YOU NEED

DATA CENTERS

GREATER OMAHA – COUNCIL BLUFFS METROPOLITAN AREA

A business environment that knows data centers:

Yahoo!, Google and other major data centers

Affordable, available power

Sophisticated telecommunication networks and abundant water

Labor, training and vendor support

Multiple available real estate options

Limited risk for natural disasters

GREATER OMAHA – COUNCIL BLUFFS METROPOLITAN AREA

Greater Omaha, Neb., and Council Bluffs, Iowa, are the two largest cities in an eight-county metropolitan statistical area with a population of approximately 860,000. The area is a long-proven location for technology companies seeking robust bandwidth; telecommunications and power infrastructures, favorable cost environment and a highly skilled workforce.

Technology Presence

Why did Yahoo! and Google locate large data centers to the Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs metropolitan area? One reason was the significant presence of existing telecommunication and information-intensive employers already located here. Yahoo! and Google soon discovered the area’s sophisticated utility, labor and support infrastructure that could minimize pioneering efforts and offer speed-to-market solutions.

We’re home to:

Large enterprise and colocation data centers•ConAgra Foods •CoSentry•First Data•First National Technology Solutions•Google• Infocrossing Inc.•Qwest (CenturyLink)•Scott Technology Center•Verizon•Yahoo!

Network operations centers (NOCs) •Union Pacific Harriman Dispatching Center •USSTRATCOM Global Operations Center•West Corporation Network Operations Center

Financial transaction centers (payment, transaction and trade centers)•First Data •First National of Nebraska•PayPal•TD Ameritrade

Insurance (information assurance and claim processing activities) The area has more than 30 insurance companies, including: •Aflac•Lincoln Financial Group•Mutual of Omaha•Pacific Life•Physicians Mutual

Customer care centers (telecommunication and network activities) More than 50 customer care centers including inbound, outbound, Web enabled and CRM call centers, including:•Marriot Worldwide Reservation Center•Ford Motor Credit•Omaha Steaks

#1 America’s Most Affordable Cities Forbes – January 2011

#2 Best Cities for Business MarketWatch – December 2010

Omaha was named One of 10 Up-And-Coming Startup Hubs From Around the World Grasshopper Group – January 2011

Greater Omaha was ranked among the top 5 Metro Areas that are Hot Money – 2010

Corporate headquarters (large enterprise companies)Home to nine Fortune 1000 headquarters, with the following five among the Fortune 500:•Berkshire Hathaway Inc.•ConAgra Foods•Kiewit•Mutual of Omaha•Union Pacific Railroad

Military presence/Government Multiple federal data-centric operations and global missions involving space, cyberspace and nuclear deterrence are centered in the area and serve bases all over the world.•U.S. Strategic Command •Air Force Weather Agency•National Security Agency •Federal Bureau of Investigation •Federal government

Affordable, Available and Reliable Power

The metro area’s power infrastructure is perfectly suited for data centers, providing low rates, surplus capacity and excellent system-wide reliability. Two well-respected power companies serve the area, Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) in Greater Omaha and MidAmerican Energy in Council Bluffs.

Low Rates Power rates are well below national and regional averages for industrial users (see Rate History). The average industrial rate is between $0.04 and $0.05 per kWh.

Available Capacity OPPD and MidAmerican Energy have surplus capacity for business growth. OPPD has a total capacity of 3,320 MW with the addition of a new 682 MW generation plant. MidAmerican Energy has a total capacity of 6,443 MW and is No. 1 in the nation in ownership of wind-powered electric generation (among rate-regulated utilities). They have 1,393 MW in operation and under construction and have regulatory approval to install an additional 1,001 MW.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

2009200820072006200520042003200220012000

Omaha Public Power District Actual

MidAmerican Energy Actual

Regional Average

National Average

3.32

3.32

3.32

3.39

3.4

3.46

3.55

3.64

3.82

4.624.34.57 4.28

4.98

4.194.91

4.345.12

4.515.27

4.715.73

4.946.16

5.086.39

5.326.83

5.836.95

4.07

4.14

4.08

4.08

4.06

4.05

4.07

4.01

3.99

4.10

Rate History (2000–2009)Industrial RatesSource: Energy Information Administration

Cen

ts/k

Wh

Consistent Reliability The average service availability index for the power companies has been among the best in the nation. OPPD has achieved an availability index of 99.988 percent and MidAmerican Energy has achieved an index of 99.98 percent system-wide over the last five years.

National Award Quality OPPD and MidAmerican Energy have received the highest rankings in the Midwest region by J.D. Power and Associates in the business customer and residential customer satisfaction surveys.

Long-Term Commitment Nebraska is the nation’s only all public power state. OPPD enjoys tax-exempt bond financing and profits are invested back into infrastructure to keep rates low. MidAmerican Energy is privately owned, which allows the company to focus on long-term growth in improving energy infrastructure. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the principal owner of MidAmerican Energy, is one of the most respected companies in the world.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Wisconsin Power & Light Co

Wisconsin Electric Power Co

Kansas City Power & Light Co - (KS)

National Average

Northern States Power Co - (MN)

Westar Energy Inc

Northern States Power Co - (WI)

Interstate Power and Light Co

Wisconsin Public Service Corp

Lincoln Electric System

Northern States Power Co - (SD)

Northern States Power Co - (ND)

Black Hills Power Inc

Kansas City Power & Light Co - (MO)

Kansas Gas & Electric Co

KCP&L Greater Missouri Operations

Minnesota Power Inc

Nebraska Public Power District

Otter Tail Power Co

Omaha Public Power District (NE)

Union Electric Co (MO)

MidAmerican Energy Co (IA)

7.24

4.10

4.47

4.62

4.96

5.23

5.30

5.33

5.34

5.55

5.60

5.62

5.66

5.71

5.94

6.11

6.18

6.31

6.36

6.70

6.72

7.04

Source: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861.

Cents/kWh

Co

mp

any

Average Price (2009)Industrial Regional

“We looked for places where the power supply is high quality and available in sufficient amounts. Upgrading power infrastructure can be expensive and time consuming, so the grid needs be ready up front.”

Chris Russell, operations manager, Google

Omaha Public Power District and MidAmerican Energy have industrial rates well below the national average.

“From an infrastructure standpoint we look for high-bandwidth, multi-path network capacity that meets our high-performance, low-millisecond thresholds for communication to both centralized Internet POPs (points of presence) and Yahoo! users throughout the region. In this respect, (Greater) Omaha stood out as the lead mid-U.S. contender to meet our requirements.”

Scott Noteboom, director, data center engineering and operations, Yahoo!

Telecommunications

Since the Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs area has a large business base that is dependent upon a high capacity and redundant telecom network, the area offers companies a very robust local and long-haul connection option.

Diversity More than 20 carriers have fiber entrances into the metro area offering redundancy and a wide variety of routing options; both lit and dark fiber service is available.

Bandwidth Capacity Multiple local access and long-haul providers can provide lit bandwidth up to 10 Gbps on redundant, diverse fiber networks with digital switching capacity.

Technology T1 to high-speed 155 Mbps (0C-3) to higher capacity 10 Gbps (0C-192) and beyond, including Metro Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and Internet2; carrier-neutral hotel available in downtown Omaha. A new IXP-enabled facility (carrier neutral peering point) is under construction at the Scott Technology Center. It has been designed to match Internet capabilities of some of the largest U.S. cities’ IXP capacities (100 Gbps). It is anticipated to be available in 2012. Data centers from across the metro will be able to connect to the backbone.

CoSentry’s Midlands Data Center serves as a homing point for many national carriers, including a recent fiber upgrade by Qwest, lowering costs and providing a completely meshed Ethernet network to access high bandwidth speeds across the United States.

Telecommunication companies •360networks •AT&T •Cox •Cogent Communications •Fiberlink Communications •Global Crossing • Iowa Network Services • Iowa Telecom •KDL •Level 3 Communications •MCI •NIPCO•Paetec•Pinpoint•Qwest (CenturyLink)•SDN Communications•Sprint•Unite Private Network•Verizon•Viaero*•Windstream•XO Communications

*Owns long-haul network and resells to get in and out of the Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs area.

Affordable and Educated Talent Pool

Affordable The average wage for information technology professionals is 9 percent below the national average.

Availability More than 15,000 information technology and data center professionals are located in the metropolitan area and possess the following skill sets: social networking, Web development, database administration, network operations and administration, network operation centers, systems and application programming and testing, storage administration, capacity planning, hardware planning and IT facilities engineering, data security, IT audit and IT procurement.

Educated The Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs area has 21 universities and colleges with more than 87,700 students and more than 121,700 students in a 50-mile radius. The area has a greater percentage of adults achieving a bachelor’s degree or higher with 32.0 percent versus 27.9 percent in the U.S.

Computer Science Occupations Annual Wage ComparisonOccupation Title Omaha AVG U.S. AVG Differential %

Computer Programmers $69,780 $74,690 -6.6

Computer Software Engineers, Applications $80,400 $90,170 -10.8

Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software $79,420 $96,620 -17.8

Computer Support Specialists $41,210 $47,360 -13.0

Computer Systems Analysts $71,760 $80,430 -10.8

Database Administrators $75,520 $74,290 1.7

Network and Computer Systems Administrators $64,470 $70,930 -9.1

Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts $68,950 $76,560 -9.9

“One thing that surprised me about Omaha was the higher productivity of the workforce – even compared to my hometown in the Silicon Valley.”

Scott Noteboom, director, data center engineering and operations, Yahoo!

Source: May 2009 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, Bureau of Labor Statistics

“We’ve had outstanding success recruiting and retaining talented IT professionals from the local area. It saves a lot of time and money when you don’t have to recruit and relocate people from other parts of the country.”

Terry West, vice president of information technology for ConAgra Foods

Targeted Data Center Training

Education programs available in the metropolitan area for new and continuing education students in the data center field:

Bellevue University•Undergraduate majors in Business Analysis and

Management, Computer Information Systems, Information Technology, Management of Information Systems, Project Management, Security Management, Software Development, Systems and Network Administration, and Web Technologies

•Graduate majors in Computer Information Systems, Cybersecurity, Management of Information Systems, and Security Management

Creighton University•Undergraduate major in Business Intelligence

& Analytics (BIA) with two tracks: Information Technology, and Digital Media & Design

•Master of Science in Information Technology Management (ITM)

•E-commerce focus on building bridges between the business and IT community

University of Nebraska Peter Kiewit Institute •Certified Center of Academic Excellence in

Information Assurance by the National Security Agency

•Multiple-level degrees in Information Assurance, Management Information Systems, Computer Science, IT Innovation and Bioinformatics

•Home to Firefly supercomputer, creating one of the most powerful academic supercomputing centers in the nation

•Qualified students graduating with security clearances for government positions

Metropolitan Community College •Data center management degree programs that

familiarize the student with the physical components, design, management, support, and operations in a data center

•Data center laboratory for hands-on operations experience

•Customized programs for data center companies, such as the first-of-its-kind green data center management two-year degree program with IBM

Iowa Western Community College•Networking and System Administration degree

programs that provide students with the opportunity to learn how to install, maintain, administer and secure network operating systems; and install and maintain hardware and software for servers and desktops

•Classroom settings with network and computer laboratory space to gain hands-on experience with the latest technology for networking environments

•Student computer laboratories are available and kept up to date, through business partner donations, to support the most cutting edge educational, IT-related programs and curriculum.

“Through funding by the U.S. Department of Labor and in partnership with IBM, Metropolitan Community College created a 1,900 square foot data center training facility. Students experience the full range of topics including virtualization, security, site selection and design, rack and power management, HVAC requirements and troubleshooting. Our more than 1,000 information technology majors work out of the data center as part of our net-centric degrees.”

Tom Pensabene, dean of information technology and eLearning, Metropolitan Community College

University of Nebraska Peter Kiewit Institute

Business Incentives

The Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs metro area offers performance-based business incentive programs that provide significant cost savings. As a company locates and/or expands (adds investment or employment), the more that company can be rewarded. Some of the features of the business incentive programs for which a company could potentially qualify include:

•Up to 100 percent personal property tax exemption on data center equipment and peripherals

•Real property tax exemption in some locations•Sales tax credits and refunds for equipment,

peripherals, utility bills and new construction •Corporate income tax credits based on

investment•Compensation credits and refunds for payroll

withholding tax liability•Tax Increment Financing (TIF) (in some

geographic areas)•Training grants (flexible and easy to use)

Available Real Estate

There is a large selection of real estate options for data center projects throughout the region including:

Building conversion Existing buildings that are suited for data center conversion and have substantial immediate power availability

Shovel-ready sites Power park sites that have utilities on site or in close proximity with substantial immediate power availability

Colocation options Existing data centers that have blocks of space of more than 30,000 square feet of raised floor

The area has competitive Midwest real estate prices, attractive permitting costs and fast turnaround on permit approvals.

Omaha was named One of the nation’s 100 Best Communities for Young People America’s Promise Alliance and ING – September 2010

#7 Best Places for Business and Careers Forbes – April 2010

#6 America’s Most Livable Cities 2010 Forbes - April 2010

Scott Data Center

Other Advantages of the Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs Area

Abundant water supply The area has plentiful water at inexpensive rates via five separate treatment facilities across the metro. An additional 110-million gallons per day of capacity was recently brought online to provide for future demand.

Low risk of disasters The region is in the lowest-rated geography in the nation for earthquake seismic threat zones. Tornado frequency is lower in the northern plains and Greater Omaha is rated second lowest (on a scale of 1 – 5) for tornado frequency by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Storm Prediction Center. The area also has no risk of hurricanes, volcanoes and tsunamis, and low risk of wildfires and environmental contamination threats. Accessible airport The metro area is served by 20 air carriers with direct service to over 20 U.S. locations. Our community is in the center of the U.S. so flight time is decreased. Our commercial airport has easy access to all points of the metro area and is within 10 minutes of downtown Omaha.

Local vendor suppliers The Greater Omaha – Council Bluffs metro area has multiple engineering, electrical, mechanical, security, fire detection and suppression, parts logistics and shipping vendors available for quick response and support for 24/7 critical systems environments.

High quality of life Relocating personnel is easy—low cost of living, employment opportunities for trailing spouses, “know your neighbor” Midwest values, short commutes and all the cultural and entertainment amenities of a large metro area.

“We can say this part of the country has a history of limited weather incidents; it’s just physically safer in the middle of the country for our data centers and the challenges we take on.”

Manny Quevedo, vice president, sales and marketing, CoSentry

Holland Performing Arts Center Bayliss Park

“You can afford a home, there’s plenty of room to grow, there’s a large and educated workforce available and our employees’ wages go a lot further.”

Chris Russell, operations manager, Google

Mid-America Center

Rod Moseman, vice president, economic development

SelectGreaterOmaha.com(402)346-5000•(800)852-2622

1301HarneySt.,Omaha,NE68102•13206GroverSt.,Omaha,NE68144

The Greater Omaha Economic Development Partnership represents a four county area that includes the Greater Omaha Chamber (Douglas County), Cass County Nebraska Economic Development Council, Gateway Development Corporation (Washington County) and Sarpy County Economic Development Corporation. This seamless regionalized economic development organization operates as a one-stop shop for your economic development needs.

March 2011. For the most current data, go to SelectGreaterOmaha.com or www.CouncilBluffsIowa.com

Greg Halverson, vice president, Pottawattamie County Growth Alliance

www.CouncilBluffsIowa.com

149 W. Broadway Council Bluffs, IA 51503

(712)325-1000•(800)228-6878