In late February, Rogers Data Centers announced plans to open its first data center in Calgary, Alberta. The facility, called Calgary_DC3, will be the first Tier III certified structure in the region and the company’s second Tier III building in the country. Overall, the data center will enable Rogers to boost their service footprint in Western Canada and provide area clients and international organizations with reliable technology solutions.
The 85,000 square foot data center features raised floor space and area for business resumption. The structure will have the capacity to house more than 900 cabinets and will also include an efficient cooling system, data protection measures and customer service resources.
In addition to being certified by the Uptime Institute, the new Canada data center also meets the necessary requirements for SSAE 16, Payment Card Industry standards and the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The certifications are beneficial for clients in a range of industries, as third party validation can assist in the data center auditing process.
With the launch of the Calgary data center, Rogers now operates 15 facilities in Canada. The new structure comes in addition to the company’s previous investments in the Western part of the country, including the $155 million acquisition of Pivot Data Centres in Calgary and Edmonton.
Telus Corp.’s British Columbia Data Center
According to a recent Vanson Bourne study sponsored by Savvis, 70 percent of Canadian IT organizations will require a service provider for infrastructure solutions including colocation, managed hosting and cloud arrangements within the next five years. A number of service providers have been working to expand their service footprints in the area, including Rogers and Telus Corp.
According to ITWorld Canada, Telus recently opened its newest facility in Southern British Columbia as part of a recent investment to boost its presence in the area. The new Kamloops data center is a $75 million, 115,000 square foot structure which will further the company’s efforts to launch new offerings for clients in the region.
“The Kamloops Internet Data Center will be the cornerstone of our national next-generation cloud computing services, handling complex data storage and offering unsurpassed connectivity, superior functionality, state-of-the-art security and industry-leading reliability to our clients,” said Telus senior vice president Lloyd Switzer.
The new British Columbia facility received Tier III certification and was built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for data center sustainability. The structure also uses the low humidity in the local climate through its innovative cooling system. This allows the data center to utilize 80 percent less electricity and 86 percent less water than traditional facilities. The Kamloops building requires only 40 hours of mechanical cooling energy annually. With these sustainability components in place, the data center can save as much as 2,300 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the environment.
BlackBridge Networks’ Alberta Data Center
Rogers and Telus join the ranks of many companies operating in Western Canada, including BlackBridge Networks, which operates a Tier III data center in Lethbridge, Alberta. The company noted that the facility is the first of its kind in Alberta to provide data center colocation, business continuity, cloud and network services from a single location. The structure features a 2(N+1) redundant infrastructure design.
