DR Fortress Upgrades Hawaii Data Center

DRFortress, Hawaii's leading colocation and Internet exchange provider, has completed an eight-month infrastructure upgrade at its flagship datacenter in Honolulu, nicknamed The Fort. The $5 million expansion has more than doubled the size of the data center to 21,300-square foot, and will address a shortage of premium colocation capacity in Hawaii, the company said.

"The expansion was necessary to meet the underserved needs of the Hawaii market," said Fred Rodi, President of DRFortress. "The demand for quality colocation services is high because of the ever increasing dependency upon technology to support primary business operations. Staying in business today means being online and accessible all day, every day. Companies are realizing this requires boarding your servers in a purpose-built datacenter like The Fort."

The expansions included infrastructure improvements to support improved power and cooling. Data center energy efficiency is particularly important in Hawaii, which is the state with the most expensive electricity, according to a state-by-state analysis of power costs by the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration, which found an average retail price of 16.8 cents per kilowatt hour.

The data center improvements have paid immediate dividends, as DataHouse and Aloha Airlines have both made commitments to increase their installations within The Fort. "We selected DRFortress as our primary colocation provider in order to meet our customer's expectations for progressive, best-in-class datacenter services," said DataHouse President and CEO, Clyde Shiigi. "The advanced design at The Fort will allow us to deploy the latest generation of server technology and create new value in our business."

The Fort occupies a crucial position in the Hawaii telecommunications market, serving as the intersection for all the major carriers and ISPs serving the state, including AT&T, Hawaiian Telcom, Pacific Lightnet, Qwest, and Time Warner Telecom.

DRFortress was founded in March 2006 and acquired the original Pihana Pacific data center from Equinix, Inc. in December 2006. The company is managed locally by former Equinix employees. The company's investors include SevenSeas Techworks and AIPA Properties.