Q9 Opens New Data Centre in Greater Toronto Area

Enviable Canadian Data Centre Portfolio Sets New Industry Benchmarks

TORONTO, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ - Q9 Networks Inc. (Q9) raises the bar again and further solidifies its leadership position with the opening of its sixth data centre in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In response to strong demand, two phases comprising two megawatts of critical customer capacity were built, instead of the single phase originally planned. The second phase is scheduled to open later this quarter.  

Q9 will invest $125 million in the new 240,000 square foot data centre, representing the company's largest-ever investment in new data centre capacity serving the GTA. Located adjacent to Q9's existing Brampton data centres, the new facility creates Canada's largest commercial data centre campus with capacity in place today to support eight megawatts of critical customer load. Capacity is being built out in phases, with sufficient expansion available on-site to support an ultimate capacity of more than 15 megawatts on the same campus.

Over the last three years, Q9 has nearly doubled its capacity across Canada in direct response to continuously growing customer demand. At the same time, Q9 acquired real estate sufficient to triple current capacity within its existing footprint. By making these strategic investments, Q9 has ensured its customers can continue to quickly and easily scale their IT infrastructure to support their growth.

"We are unique in the industry for having an exceptional in-house data centre design and build team," says Q9 Chief Executive Officer, Osama Arafat. "This significant competitive advantage allows us to quickly respond to changing customer needs and deliver capacity in very aggressive timeframes, without compromising quality or reliability. In this case, we completed the build-out in less than six short months."

The new facility is built to Q9's renowned high standards and includes such features as outside air cooling capability to maximize energy efficiency, biometric security systems, multiple connections to the Internet, redundant power, HVAC and fire suppression systems, as well as 7x24 on-site security and technical support teams.

With redundant high-speed links connecting it to other Q9 data centres in the GTA, customers will have a wide range of business continuity options using two or more Q9 data centres.

Including the new Toronto-area facility, Q9 has nine operational data centres with a tenth data centre scheduled to open in April 2011 in Kamloops, British Columbia. Since 2000, investments in data centre capacity have totaled more than $335 million. Q9 secured $210 million in new financing in April 2010 and is backed by private equity investment firm, ABRY Partners, which has $4.4 billion of capital under management and is committed to Q9's continued expansion. 

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 per cent, 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.

About Q9 Networks:

Q9 Networks 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 which 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 is backed by ABRY Partners, one of the most experienced and successful media, communications and information services focused private investment firms in North America, having completed over $21 billion of investments since 1989.

SOURCE Q9 Networks Inc.