Cogeco opens largest data centre

At 60,000 square feet it will be the largest of CDS’ five data centres (four in the Toronto area, plus one in Vancouver). However, that doesn’t include the 19 data centres parent Cogeco Inc. owns through its acquisition last year of Peer 1 networks.

When the Barrie facility is fully built out in about five years CDS will have spent about $85 million, said Virginia Brailey, CDS’ vice-president of marketing and communications. About 10,000 square feet has already been built.

“There’s a really strong market” for data centre services, Brailey (pictured above) said in an interview, “and it crosses a number of service areas. The economics don’t make sense for organizations to build their own facilities, so they’re increasingly outsourcing their requirements. There’s strong growth in the market for co-location, managed IT services, and we see really strong growth in shared and dedicated cloud services.”

CDS offers a wide range of services including cloud (infrastructure as a service, backup and disaster recovery), voice (including SIP trunking) and wavelength. Because it owns its own fibre optic network, data centers and cloud infrastructure so CDS can offer end to end service level agreements, Brailey said.

Although Barrie is the gateway to Toronto’s cottage country, CDS’ facility there will have some  company: Last year IBM Canada opened a $25,000 sq. ft. facility.

The location is ideal for Toronto-area organizations that want a data recovery site far enough from the city to cover almost all potential problems but not too far away, Brailey said.

A heavily protected structure built to suit police needs is ideal for a security-conscious data centre. It came with secure fencing, and then CDS added features like biometric access control and other security tricks.

 In April Cogeco Inc. [TSX: CGO]  released its financial results for the second quarter, saying revenue was up 32 per cent to $485 million. Profit hit $56.5 million.