The IT Nerd

I’ve been writing about BLACKIRON Data for a while now as they’re a datacenter provider that is on the leading edge of where that industry is going. Case in point is the fact that the company announced that they just received SOC 2 certification (Service Organization Controls (SOC) 2). The certification is valid for one year as of June 1, 2013, and makes BLACKIRON one of the first SOC 2 compliant data centre services companies in Canada.

The SOC 2 report expands the evaluation of controls to the criteria set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Trust Services Principles. SOC 2 examinations are designed to provide customers that outsource the operation, collection, processing, transmission, storage, organization, maintenance and/or disposal of their information to third parties a mechanism for assessing governance and oversight at those service providers. Unlike SOC 1 (SSAE 16), the focus is on controls related to security, compliance and operations – factors that are increasingly important to cloud-based businesses – rather than controls relevant to financial reporting. BLACKIRON customers now have the security that it has the efficient operational controls and meets the necessary audit levels for data protection and availability.

Having certifications like this give customers the warm fuzzies because customers not only save time and money, but they can be assured that the highest level of internal controls and security are established and maintained. That once again highlights why BLACKIRON Data needs to be on the top of your list if you need the services of a datacenter.

I’ve been writing about BLACKIRON Data for some time now as they’re a leader in the datacenter market. To back that up, IDC has come out with a report titled IDC MarketScape: Canadian Public IaaS 2013 Vendor Analysis report which lists them as a major player in this market.Now why does this matter? I’ll borrow a statement that was part of a press release from BLACKIRON this morning:

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of IT, telecommunications, or industry-specific suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT, telecommunications, or industry-specific vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a transparent foundation

The report forecasts that the Canadian public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market will grow more than 50% over the next four years, and by 2016 will be a market valued at more than C$250 million. Also, BLACKIRON differentiates itself with value-added services, hybrid computing, and the level of detail it has put into its cloud offering. Here’s what Laura Stevenson, Director of Product Management for BLACKIRON Data had to say about this:

“BLACKIRON is committed to offering businesses of all sizes an enterprise-grade IaaS platform that is secure, highly available and massively scalable,” said Laura Stevenson, Director, Product Management, BLACKIRON Data. “It is a great honour to be recognized by IDC Canada, as we have worked hard to make cloud computing cost-effective and within our customers’ control.”

This reinforces the fact that BLACKIRON data should be on your list of datacenter providers if you’re in the market for one.

BLACKIRON Data is in the news again. This time it’s because the datacenter provider is renewing it’s commitment to environmental responsibility. Here’s a snippet from their press release:

“At BLACKIRON we recognize that data centres can be taxing on the environment,” says Jennifer Bell, Director of Marketing, BLACKIRON Data. “We are constantly identifying ways to offset or reduce the environmental impact of our facilities across Canada while also helping our customers achieve their own eco-friendly objectives.”

On April 23 and 24, BLACKIRON has partnered with Artex Environmental to provide eWaste collections at four of its data centres across the country. Customers and employees are invited to drop-off retired and obsolete electronic waste, from servers to cell phones and everything in between, at BLACKIRON’s Toronto DC3 (Markham), London, Ottawa andEdmonton facilities.

“What company doesn’t have a pile of outdated equipment hiding somewhere?” states Bell. “Our eWaste collection drives make it simple for our customers and employees to do a little spring cleaning while ensuring that their eWaste will be disposed of in a safe, secure and responsible manner.”

eWaste is major issue as none of this stuff is nice towards the environment. The fact that BLACKIRON Data is stepping up to do something about this says that they’re trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. That’s not a surprise seeing as they’ve proven that they are very friendly toward the environment. Good on them!

Oh, there’s one other piece of news. The company was acquired by Rogers on the 17th:

The purchase of BLACKIRON Data enables Rogers Business Solutions’ to enhance its suite of enterprise-level data centre and cloud computing services along with Canada’s leading fibre-based network connectivity services. Canadian businesses will benefit from a single provider able to ensure end-to-end security and reliability of mission-critical business applications.

Let’s hope that this doesn’t change any of the things that make BLACKIRON Data different from the rest.

I’ve written about BLACKIRON Data in the past and I’ve got some more news from them. They announced that their Toronto DC3 facility has been award LEED Silver Certification by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). Here’s why this is important from their press release:

LEED® is a third-party certification program and an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. As an internationally recognized mark of excellence, LEED® provides building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance.

Here’s some more from Ron Ethier who is their Vice President Data Centres and Operations:

“One of our top objectives in building this facility was to make it eco-friendly,” said Ron Ethier, Vice President Data Centres and Operations, BLACKIRON Data. “Throughout the design and construction process, the BLACKIRON team considered how to make every facet of the data centre as environmentally responsible as we could. We are incredibly proud to have our Toronto DC3 data centre achieve LEED® Silver certification; the result of our team’s hard work and innovation.”

Seeing datacenters have typically not been environmentally friendly places, it’s really good to see that someone is stepping up to the plate to make a difference in this regard. This is another reason why I’ll be keeping my eye on this Canadian company who is clearly making an impact in the marketplace.

BLACKIRON Data is back with some significant news. BLACKIRON announced the renewal of their contracts with BlueSun Inc., a software as a service (SaaS) provider to the financial services and insurance industries, and the Canadian Payments Association (CPA), an organization that is responsible for the systems used to clear and settle payments for the country’s financial institutions.

What’s big about this is that BlueSun had multiple vendor relationships for data centre hosting, including BLACKIRON. Now BlueSun has opted to consolidate their managed hosting services exclusively to BLACKIRON, resulting in a cost savings of 60 percent. In the case of the CPA, they were faced with the decision of continuing to buy data centre services or to build their own facility in 2012. However, they made the decision to renew their colocation agreement with BLACKIRON. Not a shock since BLACKIRON delivered zero downtime and superior customer service over the past eight years. That’s important because the CPA processes payment items worth $174.5 billion every day in Canada which is not chump change.

I like to see Canadian companies have success. This is one that is clearly succeeding and in a huge way.

The one thing about datacenters is that they need cooling and lots of it. That results in lots of waste water as water cooling is common in datacenters. That’s not good for the environment. BLACKIRON Data is out to change all of that. According to this press release, they have adopted   Emerson Network Power’s Liebert DSE which is one of the most cutting edge cooling systems available:

“We had three objectives in building our newest data centre in Toronto – make it environmentally friendly, attain third-party certifications and guarantee 100 percent availability for our customers,” said Ron Ethier, Vice President, Data Centres and Operations, BLACKIRON Data. “The Liebert DSE allows us to meet all three of our objectives. The system leverages Toronto’s cool temperatures for optimum efficiency and energy use without sacrificing performance or disrupting our availability guarantee for customers. Utilizing this new precision cooling technology was one of the key elements to the Toronto data centre successfully achieving Uptime Institute and LEED certifications.”

The net result is huge:

With the environment in mind, an important element of the design and build of Toronto DC3 was to avoid the waste water often associated with water-cooled chillers. BLACKIRON insisted on using cooling technology that did not use water, a configuration that benefits both the environment and customers. The installation of this system has allowed BLACKIRON to save up to 100 million litres of water waste a year, as traditionally associated with operating a data centre of similar size.

Liebert Econophase, the industry’s first pumped refrigerant economizer, leverages cold outside air to cool the refrigerant used in the Liebert DSE system, reducing or eliminating compressor operation. This system provides cooling within the data centre, allowing BLACKIRON to cool a large space without chiller plants and chilled water. With Toronto’s cool temperatures, this translates into free cooling more than 75 percent of the year, allowing BLACKIRON to significantly lower power usage and energy expenses. During the summer, the Liebert DSE utilizes the most efficient variable capacity compressors for operation.

Impressive. If you want a environmentally friendly datacenter, BLACKIRON should be on your list.