Comcast Connects Businesses to Underground Data Center Storage

Imagine the confidence of storing sensitive data in an off-site maximum-security vault carved into a solid granite mountain. Now, add a private, high-performance fiber network that allows you to send digital back-up, disaster recovery and archival data -- up to 10 Gbps -- and you just might think you've died and gone to secure-storage heaven.

This isn't some data center manager's pipe dream. It's the real deal made possible by Comcast's Ethernet service and Perpetual Storage, provider of a new DataVaulting service specializing in commercial protection of off-site digital and microform data. Combining virtual data security with the underground data center’s physically secure location -- it is inside of a granite mountain in Salt Lake City -- the new service will help enable customers to access their stored records and data more efficiently over a dedicated connection.

“Perpetual Storage was founded with the intention of providing our customers with data storage and protection services that cannot be matched by any competitor,” Aubrey Murray, senior managing director of business development for Perpetual Storage, said in a statement. “Access to Comcast’s high-performance fiber network enabled us to help create our new DataVaulting service that is a natural extension of our core business and an offering that lets our customers choose a mix of service options that best meet their distinctive needs.”

The underground data center will provide multiple layers of security for digital assets of financial and insurance services, government, manufacturing, technology, and other customers. With a long history in physical storage, PSI had been looking to leverage the unique properties of its mountain facility – high-security, climate-controlled, and protected from natural disasters – to expand into digital storage services based on customer demand.

The trend of buiding data centers in old mine shafts, underground, and beneath the sea is firmly in place as security becomes more and more of an issue for IT professionals. In fact, one Finnish-Israeli startup just announced that it would be renting a cave in Finland for that very purpose.

To offer the service, Comcast extended its fiber network directly into the Perpetual Storage facility, enabling its customers to access their stored resources quickly and reliably. Customers also have better access to PSI’s managed services and consulting services for customized data center solutions built around their unique business needs.

“Investing to extend our fiber network to Perpetual Storage Inc.’s mountain vault not only enabled them to expand their market opportunity, but it also gives our customers high-performance access to a very unique on-net data center facility,” Paul Merritt, director for Comcast Business, said in a statement. “As digital storage increasingly becomes the only sound option for companies of all sizes’ disaster recovery processes, access to dependable, easily scalable Ethernet connectivity will become more necessity than luxury.”

Comcast Business, the cable company's enterprise services division, has more than 350 data centers on its network across the US. Its 145,000 route miles of fiber span 39 states and the District of Columbia.