May 7th, 2006 - News Article

In the event of a disaster, is your data safe?

STEPHEN HOLMAN / Tulsa World file Illustration by DAVID CARMAN / Tulsa World

By JOHN DOBBERSTEIN World Staff Writer
5/7/2006

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Protecting information is a critical task for businesses.

In a nondescript, brick building downtown on East Archer Street, unimaginable amounts of critical information are being processed, saved and stored.

Workers go in and out of doors with key cards.

Surveillance cameras keep tabs on every room.

Enter Perimeter Technology Center, a commercial data center in Tulsa that serves as a secure information bank for oil and gas companies, banks, manufacturers, technology companies and the like.

"Data is nothing more than customizable cash," said John Parsons, Perimeter's president. "It needs to be treated like cash, because it's becoming that valuable."

Like never before, crisis managers are emphasizing the importance of businesses safeguarding their data somewhere off site -- especially when down time could cost thousands or millions of dollars a day.

That's because disaster, man-made or otherwise, could strike any time.

More than 500 tornadoes have been reported in the Midwest this year. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pounded the Gulf Coast and destroyed hundreds of businesses in 2005. Even the 9/11 attacks, which shut down commercial airlines, illustrated a need for better disaster recovery plans.

But in most cases, a company's data meltdown is due to human error or sabotage, experts say.

Data center space is in demand across the country, as companies have begun to shy away from expensive renovations to their information technology departments. Demand for Web hosting and co-location services is skyrocketing.

This July in Austin, Texas, construction will begin on the 350-acre MetCenter, a special technology park designed to hold data center operations. Another 140,000-square-foot data center is being planned in northern Virginia, according to published reports.

Additionally, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is forcing companies to pay closer attention to the physical space where their information infrastructure is located.

Parsons said Perimeter Technology is getting more and more interest from major companies that don't want to build out their own data centers. Perimeter employs 15 people, including eight engineers.

"We're keeping their infrastructure running at all times and doing it in the most inexpensive, efficient manner possible," Parsons said. "If they can get that off the plate to us, CIOs (chief information officers) can actually be more mission-critical to the company."

Other companies provide Web hosting services, or store computer tapes and critical documents.

Steve Knight, marketing and operations director for Vault Management Inc. in Broken Arrow, said companies have exhibited a general improvement in attitude and awareness about protecting data. But he's still surprised that some large businesses in the Tulsa area don't believe it's important.

"You have to protect yourself or you're exposing yourself for a disaster," said Knight, whose 20-year-old business provides secure space for backup tapes and paper records.

"And while you're down, your competitors are taking over."

Tulsa Connect finds growing demand for its co-location services. The 10-year-old company offers a 3,000-square-foot data center in the Kennedy Building downtown, but a backup data center is coming on line soon at the former Vintage Petroleum building.

Mike Bacher, director of operations at Tulsa Connect, said he saw a rise in interest from local businesses for co-location last December when a water main break caused a power outage downtown.

Employees from various businesses were bringing computers and servers to Tulsa Connect's office, since it still had power and Internet service.

"It doesn't take a tornado to go through before they decide they need to move their data off site. Just a long power outage," Bacher said.

There is a reluctance by some companies to do that, he said, because they worry about losing control of their information. But that fear usually fades away as they see how remote centers work.

"There's no difference between doing it at your desk or being here," Bacher said.

Perimeter Technology was formed after Parsons met Stan Chase in 2002 while Chase and colleagues were running Williams Communications Group Inc.'s data center in Oklahoma City.

When Williams Communications Group filed bankruptcy and decided to exit the streaming media industry, Chase and Parsons took over the center and started their own business.

They inherited a first-class building that served major clients such as the Navy, the Food and Drug Administration, IBM Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Electronic Data System Inc., Merrill Lynch and General Motors Corp.

They were equally fortunate last year in Tulsa. Genuity Inc., a Woburn, Mass.-based telecom company, had spent nearly $5 million installing equipment at an 80-year-old ice storage warehouse at 322 E. Archer St., but the company filed for bankruptcy a short time later.

The building was too large for any one company to take on as a data center, but Parsons and Chase thought it could be redeveloped as Perimeter's second facility.

They've spent $3 million on the building to date. Business continuity office space is planned on the second floor.

"We realized our vision for dominating our state from a disaster-recovery standpoint," Parsons said.

With more than 150 clients, including some Fortune 500 companies, Perimeter offers everything from co-location to fully managed hosting services. It has 78,000 square feet of data center space in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Tulsa-based Global Power Equipment Group Inc., which has 2,700 employees in various countries, decided to hire Perimeter instead of building its own dedicated data center.

Global specializes in the design, engineering and fabrication of equipment for gas turbine power plants and power-related equipment for industrial operations.

John McNaughton, the company's chief information officer, said Global's executives discovered Perimeter just before they were ready to sign a construction contract for a data center.

Global has its own backup data center, but Perimeter serves as an extra layer of security. Eventually, the company plans to make Perimeter the primary site for its computer network.

"The minute we walked through their facility, we said, 'We're going to take them,' " McNaughton recalled. "This is just a much cleaner solution. I feel very fortunate we found them."

Vault Management Inc. has been around since 1982, but its owners have chosen to continue offering storage services for backup tapes and critical documents instead of expanding into a data center.

For some small companies, Vault Management is the only disaster recovery plan, Knight said. Frequently, the company is hired just to get backup tapes replaced on a regular schedule.

The alternative, Knight said, is for employees to take the tapes home themselves, which increases the chance of valuable data being damaged or lost.

Off-site storage "takes away the risk of a disgruntled employee running off with a bag of tapes, or having employees responsible for that," Knight said.

AT&T Inc. does not farm out its data backup to private companies but has 30 of its own Internet data centers around the world, said Ray Uriarte, the company's director for sales and hosting.

Businesses must decide which of their applications are most critical and can't fail, and evaluate the risks that might cause disruption, Uriarte said.

"Can you imagine a credit card company, or a stock broker or real estate or transportation company saying, 'We can't book you because our computers are down?' " he said.

"People expect the system to be there."

John Dobberstein 581-8413
john.dobberstein@tulsaworld.com

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