PAETEC Gets Cloudy With Boston Data Center

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The PAETEC network operations center. The company has opened its new data center in Andover, Mass.

PAETEC today took the first step in a major move into cloud computing, opening a major data center in Andover, Mass. The telecom and hosting provider says it plans to open multiple  new data centers this year to support a major push into cloud services.

PAETEC Holding Corp. (PAET) opened the doors to a 92,700 square foot data center about 25 miles north of Boston. The two-story facility includes nearly an acre of raised floor space available for customers to collocate their servers, routers, and other communication equipment.

"Moving business applications from the desktop to the cloud will bring efficiency not possible before," said Arunas Chesonis, chairman and CEO of PAETEC. "With our expertise in telecommunications and data convergence, we're in a leading position to support the shift towards cloud computing and can provide our customers with a comprehensive set of managed service solutions to meet their business goals."

PAETEC says it intends to open eight more data centers across the country in the next 18 months, with new centers in Houston, Milwaukee, and Phoenix scheduled to come online later this year.

The Andover center will offer data backup and recovery services to ensure regulatory compliance and business continuity, as well as dedicated and shared web hosting.

"We're utilizing our more than ten years of data center experience along with our advanced portfolio of communication solutions," added Chesonis. "As a result, we've built an infrastructure that will responsibly serve our customers' needs now and in the future as we continue our data center expansion efforts, implement virtualization, and provide server consolidation, content acceleration, and software as a service offerings."

The Andover data center is supported by five one-megawatt generators with 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel. To keep the center at an optimum temperature for customer equipment, the facility has 2,000 tons of cooling capacity, which will pull from outside air in winter months to help reduce energy costs and overall consumption for increased efficiencies.

PAETEC says it operates 1.4 million square feet or more than 32 acres of data center space. It serves customers in financial services, government, healthcare, higher education, and hospitality industries.