Ontario Nurses' Association Calls On Q9 For Disaster Recovery Solution

TORONTO, May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - Q9 Networks (Q9) is pleased to announce that it is providing the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) with a high-availability disaster recovery solution for its mission-critical databases and email systems. Approximately 250 full-time staff and 150 member representatives across Ontario depend on these systems. Founded in 1973, the association represents 60,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals as well as more than 14,000 nursing student affiliates providing care throughout the province of Ontario.

Q9 is providing the ONA with secure physical space, reliable power, bandwidth and 7x24 monitoring for its backup systems, as well as a high capacity link to its production environment to ensure low latency and near instantaneous failover in the event of a disaster.

"At one time, enterprise-class co-location services were beyond the reach of organizations like ours," says David Laxdal, Manager Information Technology, Ontario Nurses' Association. "But we can't afford not to protect our IT assets and today, with Q9's power reservation model, we get reasonable pricing plus all of the benefits of a highly secure enterprise-class data centre, including extensive redundancies, SLA-backed guarantees on bandwidth and power and outstanding customer service."

Q9 designs, builds and operates its data centres to meet the most demanding IT infrastructure requirements, including the increased power and cooling demands of today's high density computing devices. Customers connect to the Internet via Q9's unique network and are protected by Q9's 100 percent, SLA-backed uptime guarantees on both power and network availability. Customer equipment and data centre environmental parameters are monitored 7x24 by Q9's Control Centre, staffed by experts versed in all aspects of IT and facilities management.

"Mid-sized organizations can no longer take risks when it comes to the availability of their business-critical IT systems," says Q9 Chief Executive Officer, Osama Arafat. "Maintaining resilient IT infrastructure has become a basic requirement for doing business. The ONA recognizes the value in outsourcing their business continuity requirements so they can focus on activities that improve productivity and efficiency. We are pleased to be providing them with a robust and cost-effective disaster recovery solution to ensure business continuity."

About Ontario Nurses' Association

ONA is the union representing 60,000 front-line registered nurses and allied health professionals as well as more than 14,000 nursing student affiliates providing care in Ontario hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, industry and clinics.

About Q9 Networks:

Q9 Networks Inc. is Canada's leading provider of outsourced data centre infrastructure for organizations with mission-critical IT operations. Q9's data centres and network are backed by an industry leading SLA that guarantees 100 per cent network and power availability. Q9 services, including: co-location, bandwidth, dedicated servers, firewalls, load balancing, virtual private networking (VPN) and back-up/restore, enable the rapid provisioning and scalability of client infrastructure.  Q9 Networks is owned by an investor group comprising Canada's largest communication company, BCE Inc., and some of the largest and most experienced North American pension and private equity funds, including: Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC.

SOURCE Q9 Networks Inc.