Secure Storage In The Fort

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Wednesday - October 24, 2007
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The DRFortress squad
The DRFortress squad (from left) Brian Cox, Fred Rodi, Rosa White, Carl Mullen, Adam Cheong and Jed Miskella

A lot of people are confused when I try to explain what DRFortress is all about. For a long time, my mother thought I sold kitchen cabinets for a living.

The wife of company president Fred Rodi thought DRFortress was public storage for computers.

As Hawaii’s premier colocation and Internet peering exchange provider, DRFortress provides a vital service to Hawaii’s businesses.

Simply put, a colocation center is a type of data house where customers rent out “suites” or “cabinets” to store their network and mission-critical servers and interconnect to a variety of telecommunications and other network service providers at minimum cost.


The company raised a total of $16 million in funding and just completed a $5.8-million, eight-month renovation project to augment our flagship data center, The Fort, to include the latest in state-of-the-art technology and security features. The purpose-built 21,300-square-foot facility is now 10 times bigger than any other facility of its kind in the state, helping address the critical shortage of colocation space for local businesses.

Over the last several years, outsourcing commercial colocation has become the standard for most organizations that consider replacing or augmenting their data center needs in Hawaii.

Several factors have contributed to the growing demand for colocation services, including government regulations, rapid increases in the power consumption of computing technology, greater dependency upon technology to support primary business operations and rising concern over the threat of natural disasters.

So, if your company has critical applications such as Internet, accounting or IT systems that can’t afford to go down, the right infrastructure has to be in place to support it. But not everyone has the financial means to build their own datacenter.

At DRFortress, we provide the infrastructure for our customers to have a network-neutral, safe and secure place to house all of their network equipment.

DRFortress, formerly Pihana Pacific and Equinix Inc., the only Class-A premium facility in the state, has built its business around this principle of network-neutral colocation where customers are encouraged to scale their infrastructures to the highest availability by connecting to multiple Internet service providers.

Our carrier partners provide transport services directly from a point-of-presence inside The Fort. Current carrier partners include AT&T, Hawaiian Telcom, IP Access, Pacific LightNet, Qwest and TimeWarner Telecom.

As the only commercial Internet exchange in Hawaii, DRFortress’ peering platform makes it possible for participants to trade network traffic locally, eliminating the need for costly and inefficient transit services to and from the Mainland.

Connected to the service providers are customers such as Mobi PCS, Aloha Airlines and Servco Pacific, who use The Fort to house their primary operations systems and keep smaller back-up systems in their office location.

We give you a choice so that you can make the best decisions for the well-being of your organization in terms of growth, prosperity, flexibility as well as security.

And when it comes to security, there is no place else like The Fort. We have the latest in security engineering standards and amenities.

You have to get through several layers to gain access to The Fort, including a bullet-proof/hurricane-proof door entrance, biometric/iris recognition, multiple scramble pads with personal pass codes, 24-hour security guard, CCTV monitoring magnetic door readers and more.


We’ve spent millions of dollars designing and constructing The Fort to meet the latest colocation technology requirements. From our high-tech cooling system to our power generators, The Fort has been built with redundancy (two of everything), from our high-tech cooling systems to our UPS and power generators.

The equipment is set up so that if one system piece of equipment experiences a failure or is turned off for maintenance purposes, the other side will seamlessly kick in so there is never a time when the equipment system is compromised.

This redundancy is something that does not exist in any of the state’s other colocation providers. It is also one reason why the City & County of Honolulu Civil Defense plans to utilize the DRFortress data center as its home base in the event of an emergency. It’s a program we are offering, for the moment, only to the city’s vital operations.

It is our mission to stay ahead of the curve to meet customer demands in all areas of the industry. Our locally managed team blends industry experience with a singular focus on the unique market in Hawaii. We are available 24/7, keeping your business environment safe and secure.

 

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