WEST JORDAN — Consonus Inc. opened the largest full-service data center in Utah Wednesday when it unveiled its new 30,000-square-foot facility during a private celebration that drew employees, Lt. Gov. Olene Walker and Consonus executives Don Cash, board chairman, and chief Executive Officer Steven Eror.
The "eBusiness Data Center," near Jordan Landing specializes in high-speed, secure Web hosting services. Customer Web companies hire Consonus to manage their applications over a platform supported by managed hosting and data center services, network engineering and more.
"The trends are clear," said Eror. "Business is moving in this direction, and it has to have facilities and infrastructure solid enough to support it."
It's the company's third data center in the Salt Lake area. It expects to open eight new centers throughout the United States in the next three years.
Businesses live and die by such features as reliability and security. The new center has been designed to overcome even natural disasters. For instance, seismic isolators allow uninterrupted service through earthquakes up to 7.8 on the Richter scale. A concrete holding tub will stave off flooding, and a fire-suppression system will protect the center from equipment damage in case of fire — and promises to do it in a matter of seconds.
The center also has multiple diesel generators to power the center during even long-lasting power outages, providing up to 1.7 megawatts of electricity.
External security measures include iron gates, car traps and a complete visual monitoring system. "We want to stop problems on the street before they get in here," said Eror. Internal security includes biometric hand scanners that help control access.
According to company executives, Consonus can "eliminate application failure for software developers looking to deliver software as a service over the Internet and large customers looking to outsource applications management."
That translates, they say, into servers that don't crash and applications that don't fail.
Consonus customers include Zions Bank, Mountain America Credit Union and Campus Pipeline, plus national companies like Adidas and Hewlett-Packard.
E-MAIL: lois@desnews.com