Primus Taking Data Centre, Cloud and Managed Services Business to New Heights with BLACKIRON Data

New division launched to exclusively focus on Data Centre, Cloud and Managed Services Customers

TORONTO, Oct. 16, 2012 /CNW/ - Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. (Primus Canada), a wholly owned subsidiary of PTGi (Primus Telecommunications Group, Incorporated), today announced the launch of BLACKIRON Data, an entirely new division squarely focused on delivering the highest quality Data Centre, Cloud and Managed Services for business. Primus' eight data centres across Canada, its cloud products and managed services will become BLACKIRON effective immediately.

The strategic focus of Primus' Data Centre Technologies Group has recently translated into a series of third party endorsements — including the certification of its newest Toronto Data Centre as the only Tier III multi-tenant facility in Canada by Uptime Institute, and acknowledgement by Info-Tech Research Group as a colocation and managed services "champion." Building on this momentum and the growing need among customers for increasingly more powerful, scalable products and expert services, it made strategic sense to establish a dedicated division focused on delivering a highly compliant and certified outsourcing solution to mid-market, enterprise and government organizations.

According to 451 Research in the U.S., the North American cloud computing market is growing at 62 percent annually and managed hosting at 21 percent.  In addition, IDC anticipates an explosion in the amount of data enterprises will manage in the next decade, which it estimates at 50 times more data.  Given this unprecedented pressure on computing, Primus anticipates a significant customer need for an organization like BLACKIRON Data that is solely focused on delivering high-quality and certified data centre services.

"As the demands of managing exponentially more data push the thresholds of an organization's computing capacity, more and more enterprise companies will turn to BLACKIRON Data to deliver superior quality in technology and certified expertise," said Andrew Day, CEO of Primus Canada. "We recognized that to meet this tremendous demand, now and in the future, businesses require a highly skilled and certified organization exclusively focused on providing top quality hosting, cloud and managed services.  BLACKIRON is now ideally positioned to respond — and more importantly scale its offering — to the increasingly complex technology infrastructure requirements of business."

As businesses grow into medium-sized companies and then into large enterprises, an organization's IT infrastructure must scale up accordingly.  More pressing still, as data demands explode, organizations will need to enhance computing power quarterly rather than the conventional cycle of every two or three years.  This can be a disruptive and costly proposition, particularly for the majority of companies whose core competency is not IT specific. BLACKIRON's data centre, cloud and managed services can seamlessly scale up to meet higher volumes of data while also managing the variable power and performance required of large enterprises with thousands of employees located in multiple locations across North America.  This level of scalability will eliminate operational disruptions when a company needs to scale up or down with the added benefit of keeping costs firmly predictable over the long-term.

"A company's IT infrastructure and mission critical applications can now create a fundamental competitive advantage.  The better the performance as defined by uptime, speed, security, control, scalability and costs, the better that company will be at delivering a premium service or product to its customers," said AJ Byers, President of BLACKIRON Data. "With so much on the line, any downtime, however brief, can quickly hobble a business' capacity to deliver on its core competency. It is for this reason that BLACKIRON's unrelenting mission will be on pushing data centres, cloud and managed services performance higher while keeping costs predictable and service levels unparalleled. As the most certified Data Centre services company in Canada, BLACKIRON will make the necessary investments to make it easier for enterprise to outsource their IT infrastructure."

In keeping with the company's focus on certification, including PCI, CICA 5970 Type B, SSAE 16 Type II and ISAE 3402, and level of service, BLACKIRON Data will have fully certified technicians and systems engineers available seven days a week.  Each of the company's eight Canadian Data Centres include the most sophisticated security and climate control systems while BLACKIRON's extensive and diverse network connectivity provides maximum speed via Internet or private WAN service delivery across Canada and throughout the United States.

The division's Cloud Computing platform offers maximum control to customers through a dashboard with links for managing a company's entire infrastructure, including server, storage and networking components with the added benefits of easy scalability.

"Business in Canada and globally is on the cusp of a data tsunami.  Managing this wave will be significantly more complex and require ever more sophisticated expertise to not only maximize a business' competitive advantage, but to keep it performing effectively and securely at all times," said Byers.  "With a focus on investing in auditing, compliance and certification, BLACKIRON will continue to set new benchmarks for the industry."

About BLACKIRON Data
BLACKIRON Data is an innovator in data centre, cloud and managed services technology, providing a singular focus to ensuring the most robust and bullet-proof IT infrastructure to meet the needs of business. With eight owned and managed state-of-the-art, and highly reliable data centres, including Canada's only Tier III design and construction certified facility, and the vast array of fully audited operational, facility, and environmental certifications, BLACKIRON Data is the most certified data centre services company in Canada. BLACKIRON Data is a division of Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc., a subsidiary of PTGi. Visit blackirondata.com for more information.

About PTGi
PTGi (Primus Telecommunications Group, Incorporated) is a leading provider of advanced communication solutions, including, traditional and IP voice, data, mobile services, broadband Internet, collocation, hosting, and outsourced managed services to business and residential customers in the United States and Canada. PTGi is also one of the leading international wholesale service providers to fixed and mobile network operators worldwide. PTGi owns and operates its own global network of next-generation IP soft switches, media gateways, hosted IP/SIP platforms, broadband infrastructure, fiber capacity, and data centers located in Canada. Founded in 1994, PTGi is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

SOURCE: Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.

Primus Canada Media Contact: 
Jennifer Stein, APEX Public Relations, [email protected], [phone] ext. 227