Secure Data Warehouses Rise Again in N. Virginia

Several projects are underway in Northern Virginia to build highly secure data centers to protect the thousands of computer servers managing Internet traffic and storing digital files, ranging from e-mail to sensitive financial and medical information.

A growing appetite for Internet applications and a better understanding of the vulnerabilities in such systems after Hurricane Katrina and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has helped revive an industry that had been hit hard by the dot-com bust.

"We've seen more activity in companies coming in and buying existing sites and quite a bit of new construction than we've seen in a long time," said Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, an online trade publication.