Washington, DC (Vocus) August 10, 2010
The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) has signed an agreement with InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc. to provide it with secure data center space, bandwidth, and IP connectivity to its headquarters located in downtown Washington, DC..
NTHP, a not-for-profit membership organization, faced unique challenges with its legacy data center, which was originally built to support legacy systems that were very large in size. NTHP’s legacy data center lacked fire suppression, diesel generators, and other redundant systems to ensure adequate cooling, connectivity, and safety.
Our room had been sized for the old days (large – before virtual servers). The core of the room was now simply two racks filled with virtual servers and a SAN and lots of extra space to cool. The space housing our racks was in the basement near a water main, both its legacy AC systems were failing, it had no fire suppression, and no backup generator. We started the design of new space in another part of the building, but the costs of relocation became prohibitive especially considering we were just looking to support two dense racks of equipment , said Michael Corcoran, the Director of Information Technology for the National Trust.
InfoRelay, a company that provides custom IP connectivity, disaster recovery, and secure server colocation solutions developed a unique solution that would meet NTHP’s technical requirements while remaining withing the budget allocated to their project. Mr. Corcoran commented: We had worked with InfoRelay for about a year (to support our DR equipment) and have been pleased with their service. Once we presented the issue to our InfoRelay Sales Engineer, we found a way to bring Gigabit Ethernet to the location. We then realized that all the resources we would have had to pay so much for were part of the services InfoRelay offers. Their Reston location is easy for us to get to and far enough from the downtown DC core to be a more secure location for our production environment. Their pricing was aggressive and very reasonable.
According to InfoRelay, the project is going to take approximately 120 days to fully build out, but it will consist of providing dark fiber from Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D.C. back to the InfoRelay data center environment located in Reston, Virginia, a well known technology corridor which is home to many Fortune 100 and 500 companies. By lighting the dark fiber at 1Gbps (1,000 Megabits per second), NTHP was able to not only improve their local IP connectivity (Internet bandwidth), but is able to effectively ensure that internal servers still appear local to its offices, despite being housed remotely. Custom-engineered gigabit Ethernet between NTHP’s headquarters and the InfoRelay data center make this possible. Not only will NTHP be able to utilize a full 100Mbps of IP connectivity locally at their Northern Virginia environment to the outside world, they will be able to reach speeds of 100Mbps at their Headquarters, AND still have enough capacity on their dark fiber to handle all of their internal applications between the two sites. It’s a win-win situation. stated Joseph Vajda, a senior network engineer with InfoRelay.
About National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation (http://www.PreservationNation.org) is a non-profit membership organization bringing people together to protect, enhance and enjoy the places that matter to them. By saving the places where great moments from history and the important moments of everyday life took place, the National Trust for Historic Preservation helps revitalize neighborhoods and communities, spark economic development and promote environmental sustainability. With headquarters in Washington, DC, eight regional and field offices, 29 historic sites, and partner organizations in 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy and resources to a national network of people, organizations and local communities committed to saving places, connecting us to our history and collectively shaping the future of Americas stories.
About InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc.
Founded in 1995, InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc. (http://www.inforelay.com) delivers enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes. Utilizing seven data centers worldwide, InfoRelay serves over 100,000 clients through its main product lines and subsidiaries. InfoRelay’s unrivaled network is powered by multiple Cisco routers, and boasts over 100 gigabits-per-second of network capacity. InfoRelay’s staff and management combine decades of diverse experience in the fields of information technology, storage, and networking with today’s best enterprise-level hardware and software technologies. Each enterprise-level client is assigned a dedicated Technical Account Manager and support team, allowing InfoRelay to further differentiate itself from the competition by providing a comprehensive, personalized support infrastructure. By demonstrating unparalleled levels of responsiveness, concern, and overall service, InfoRelay establishes a unique trusting relationship with each client, allowing InfoRelay to act as a 24x7x365 extension of its clients’ IT departments. This partnership allows InfoRelay’s clients to focus on their core businesses, rather than on the day-to-day concerns of hosting infrastructure. For more information, please visit http://www.inforelay.com, or call (703)
National Trust for Historic Preservation to Select InfoRelay for Data Center and Connectivity Requirements
