CenturyLink Expands Canadian Cloud in Toronto Data Center

CenturyLink has been expanding its global cloud footprint at a rapid pace, and its next expansion is in its Toronto data center, where the company has established a cloud node. It joins an existing Toronto node as well as one on the country's west coast in Vancouver.

Cloud in Canada is of growing importance, with rising desire to keep data within the country’s borders. This need goes beyond legal requirements. Customers in general worry that other countries could place restrictions and prevent data from being transferred outside of the hosted country. For businesses in Canada, or those that do business in Canada, the new node means CenturyLink continues to build a big-league cloud within borders, with the benefits of data sovereignty and performance through proximity.

"There's lots of demand for cloud in Canada," said Richard Seroter,  director of product management for CenturyLink cloud. There are more workloads in the market targeted for cloud, and many of them are large workloads, he noted, adding that the major public cloud providers haven't established themselves much within the country's borders.

The CA3 cloud node will also appeal to customers in T3, CenturyLink's new Toronto data center opening later this year.

The provider offers compute, storage and networking services in its public cloud. Customers can create custom dimensions for CPU and RAM, use block storage for app data, and opt in for a premium storage option that auto-replicates data from Toronto to Vancouver.

The company currently offers cloud managed services only in Santa Clara, California, and in Sterling, Virginia, but it is planning to add them in Canada in the coming months. It initially rolled out on-demand managed services that customers can order through the same portal as cloud infrastructure last month.

In addition to expanding its cloud locations, it has had a very active 2014 in terms of data center expansion. CenturyLink's data center services play came with acquisition of Savvis and its colo roots remain core to its strategy. By the end of the year, it will have added more than 180,000 square feet and 20 MW to its global presence. It recently opened a new facility in Minnesota, which is actually further north than its Toronto facilities and boasts a better professional hockey team.