Pivot expands Calgary, Edmonton facilities

Nestor E. Arellano

12 years ago

Increasing co-location demand in Alberta is prompting Pivot Data Centres Inc., to expand its two primary data centres in Calgary and Edmonton.

“A lot of data centres in Calgary are in city centres and these facilities are increasingly bumping up against power restrictions and real estate cost,” said Michael Koury, president and CEO of Pivot. “As a result, we’re seeing an increase in co-location demand from our large enterprise and SMB clients.”

“At the moment, we are already hitting capacity in our Calgary location and are nearly sold out half of the 38,000 square feet initial capacity we have in our Edmonton facility which just opened in August this year,” he said.

Pivot is in the process of building another 30,000 plus square feet facility in Edmonton.

The company is also expanding the footprint and adding a full Megawatt capacity to its Calgary facility.

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“We have two data centres in Calgary roughly 40,000 square feet in size,” said Koury. “After seeing the rapid growth in demand in 2011 and 2012, we are building out another facility of roughly the same size in the area.”

Both projects are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Pivot started operating in 1989 under the name Care Factor. Back then, the company offered other services that included data centre designing, data centre building and computer maintenance.

The company rebranded in 2012 as Pivot Data Centres with its entry into the Edmonton market with the opening of a 38,000 square feet co location facility.

“The timing of this transition is deliberate,” said Koury. “There was a number of key changes to our executive team as well as an evolution in our service offering and business model.”

“There was also a lot of confusion among customers because with the name Care Factor we were often confused with the healthcare industry,” he added.

Security and data storage are hot button issues for many large enterprises and even small and medium sized businesses. As companies realize the need for more data storage and backup strategies, a cost effective, reliable and secure alternative facility becomes critical.

One option businesses often consider is co-location hosting wherein data storage is outsourced to a third party provider that rents out space in a data facility. Typically the space provider is in charge or managing and monitoring the servers in the facility.

Pivot says it is the only privately-held co-location provider in the country that offers carrier-neutral facilities, vendor-agnostic infrastructure platforms and SSAE-16 and PCI compliance. The company provides data centre services to 17 of the top 25 Alberta-based energy corporations.

The company also provides IT relocation services, facilities management services and offers business resumption centres furnished with offices, meeting rooms, kitchens, office equipment and Internet access.

“Most of our clients rely on us not only for data storage but also for off-site back-up and disaster recovery,” said Koury. “Because of our location our customers mainly come from the energy sector, but we also have clients from government, telecom, media and distribution industries.”