Data centre up and running

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This article was published 15/09/2015 (3837 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The $53-million MTS Data Centre is up and humming.

The 64,000-square-foot secure facility is the only Tier III data centre in the province as rated by the go-to authority on data centres, the Seattle-based Uptime Institute.

MTS CEO Jay Forbes said the company has high hopes for the operation, which will operate as a sort of landlord for customers who want to lease space in the facility for secure, reliable, professionally managed storage of data.

“We believe there is a huge advantage in being located in Manitoba,” Forbes said. “There’s an underlying trend around data and cybersecurity, which is a big driver for this type of business. But we think Manitoba is a perfect place to house this type of facility.”

That’s because in addition to security, the operation of a data centre requires heavy use of energy to cool and power the servers.

“We have reliable, low-cost energy, a cool climate and a central location in the continent,” he said.

There are all sorts of redundancies built into the facility. Forbes said it is designed to be 99.982 per cent reliable, which means it can’t be down for more than two hours any given year.

The facility is strategically located on Waverley Street far enough from downtown and away from busy rail, air and highway transportation networks, which diminishes the risk of third-party incidents or accidents that might disrupt its operations.

It’s also built across the road from a major Manitoba Hydro operations yard, helping to ensure reliable access to energy.

The power-in comes from four Hydro sub-stations, so if there is a disruption in any one, the others will deliver all the power necessary to continue operating. It is also equipped to generate its own power from a number of diesel generators in the event its hydroelectrical supply is interrupted. There is also a caché of battery power that will bridge the few seconds of time before diesel generators kick in.

At its official opening Monday, the facility was at less than 50 per cent capacity, but MTS officials are confident demand will fill the facility that can house up to 800 server racks.

“Data is being created at a pace we have never seen before,” said Forbes noting 98 per cent of the existing data in the world has been created in just the last two years.

“The fundamental trend here is an explosion in data growth and an equal explosion in cyber crime. So, that data has to be housed and processed somewhere in a manner that requires degrees of care and safety and security.”

He said it is likely the facility will generate revenue large enough to constitute a separate line of business and reported separately. The site has the capacity for additional construction when demand is large enough.

Ryan Klassen, general manager of the MTS facility, said at the outset the MTS Data Centre will house and manage servers for clients who will own the hardware and pay MTS to house it.

In time, MTS plans to roll out additional services.

“The first set of services is space and power,” Klassen said. “Then we will get into more cloud-based services for customers who don’t want to own the equipment or the applications and they will pay for use on a consumption-based model.”

With only a couple of dozen facilities like this in the country — and only a handful west of here — Forbes said it is an important addition to the city’s technical infrastructure.

“I’m a strong believer in clusters,” he said. “If you are going to create clusters of capabilities like an IT cluster, you need a facility like this to support growth of technology in the city.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca