Eric Petersen, Data Center Services Sales Manager at the Vault attended two events over the past month, where he helped grow awareness of the Vault’s services and close proximity, yet safe distance, from the Northwest’s metropolitan areas.

On April 30^th, Petersen was in Salem at the Annual Spring Conference for the Health Information and Management Systems Society.  Approximately 200 healthcare professionals attended the event from organizations like Providence, PeaceHealth, Legacy, OCHIN and St. Charles Health Systems.

Security is of upmost importance to healthcare organizations, and many attendees met with Petersen to discuss topics relevant to Health Information Exchange and Coordinated Care and Collaboration.

One healthcare plan administrator from Salem spoke with Petersen about his desire for a disaster recovery site and had not considered an in-state option until he learned of the Vault.

Alternatively, several hospital organizations revealed backup strategies that include in-region backup and hosting services, but did not include an out of region component. This is where the team at the BendBroadband Vault can add value and make a good backup strategy even better.

A few weeks after the HiMSS Conference, May 17-18, the Vault exhibited at the Oregon chapter of the American Health Information Management Association (OrHIMA) annual convention in Portland.

Petersen reports that he met healthcare professionals from around the region, who travelled from places like Great Falls, Montana and  Astoria, Oregon.

Petersen has several other exhibits planned next month. He will be at the Interface 2012 Conference near Medford, Oregon June 8, and then traveling up to Seattle, Washington on June 18 for the VMware User Group Conference.

Kitzhaber and Hayes were especially impressed by the free cooling passive heat exchange system. BendBroadband CEO Amy Tykeson and Director of Business Sales Sean Handley lead the tour.

The Governor was wearing his trademark cowboy boots, jeans and a sportcoat! Below are a few photos from the tour.

Left to right: Pitt Turner, Executive Director, Uptime Institute; John Ford, VP of Sabey Data Centers (Sponsors of the GEIT awards); John Sabey, CEO of Sabey Data Centers; Steve Rudinsky, BendBroadband Vault; Kenneth Brill, Founder of Uptime Institute and creator of the Tier system

Yesterday BendBroadband Vault accepted an Honorable Mention in the prestigious 2012 Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards, presented by the Uptime Institute. The GEIT Awards showcase organizations that are pioneering energy-efficiency improvements in their IT and data center operations.

The Vault was recognized in the Facility Design Implementation category for its state-of-the-art, energy efficient design. Several notable GEIT winners include Facebook, Verizon Wireless, eBay and Dell among others.

Steve Rudinsky from BendBroadband Vault was in Santa Clara, California at the seventh annual Uptime Institute Symposium, to accept the award, and presented a brief case study about the Vault’s green initiatives.

His presentation highlighted BendBroadband’s 30,000-square-foot colocation data center and a few features of its low-carbon design: an onsite 152kW Solar Generation plant,  free cooling passive heat exchange system that cools with outside air 75% of the time, and 100% Blue Sky renewable energy. The Vault is LEED Gold certified.

A principal objective of the GEIT Awards is to educate the data center and IT industries in effective ways to reduce energy and resource consumption by highlighting innovation and best practices. The Awards are open to applicants in all countries, and entries are thoroughly reviewed by an international committee of independent judges.

St. Charles Health System in Oregon as well as a regional bank and an international telecommunications company colocate or store their primary data at the Vault and take advantage of the facility’s proven compliancy and certifications.

Because the Vault is Tier III certified, HIPAA compliant and SSAE 16 audited, clients can store their data without the worry of first achieving, and then enforcing the stringent and often impractical data storage policies and procedures at their business locations.

While anyone who’s visited a doctor recently is familiar with HIPAA policies that protect the privacy of medical patients, many are not as familiar with the new SSAE 16 assurance audit for service providers which last year replaced Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 as the leading compliance initiative for service organizations.

The Vault passed the rigorous SSAE 16 audit after a detailed review of processes, policies, procedures and operational activities and validated optimal performance standards regarding security, availability and operational integrity.

As a result of passing the rigorous SSAE 16 audit while demonstrating compliance to HIPAA security standards, customers of the Vault can rest assured that they are meeting data security standards and that their crucial data is housed in one of most the secure data centers on Earth.

In February, Apple confirmed the purchase of a 160-acre lot in Prineville, the same small Central Oregon town where Facebook built a 300,000 square foot data center last year and also plans to build another next door.

Industry sources have confirmed rumors that yet another data center project, codenamed “Jasper” is in the works.  The abundance of affordable energy and generous tax incentives means data centers in Central Oregon are here to stay.

These single-tenant, mega-data centers are intended for proprietary purposes meaning other companies cannot colocate in them. On the other hand, the BendBroadband Vault data center in Bend offers a multi-tenant colocation service so that the aspiring Apples and Facebooks of tomorrow have an affordable data storage resource today.

Celebrating its first anniversary this month, the Vault is the only Tier III-certified data center in the Western United States, which means it has triple redundancy (or in geek speak, is concurrently maintainable) and is designed to withstand any power, cooling or connectivity outages.

Both the Vault and Facebook’s data center are LEED Gold Certified, and utilize state-of-the-art energy efficiency and green design – which will help keep Central Oregon beautiful.

Companies on the quest for data center services may consider Central Oregon because of its picturesque setting and the ability to mix business and pleasure in this outdoor recreation hotspot, but that isn’t the only reason.

Here are the top three reasons companies should consider Central Oregon, and particularly the Vault when selecting a secure site for their data:

1) Climate: The Vault is situated in Oregon’s high desert. The elevation and chilly nighttime temperatures provide an ideal climate for the advanced KyotoCooling systems to use outside air 75% of the time.

2) Affordable Energy: Central Oregon has no shortage of affordable power, with the main transmission line for the Bonneville Power Administration running through the region carrying hydro and wind energy from the Columbia River to California; this reduces the cost of electricity and ultimately enables the Vault to pass on the savings to its clients.

3) Low-risk of natural disasters: News of damage from hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes spreads quickly, and if companies in susceptible areas aren’t colocating their data in a place such as Central Oregon, they risk losing it all. Central Oregon is seldom threatened by extreme weather and according to the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, has a much lower risk of seismic activity than most West Coast cities.

Uptime Institute, a division of The 451 Group, has announced the winners of the 2012 Green Enterprise IT Awards, which recognize pioneering advancements for significantly improved energy productivity in IT and data center operations. The recipients will be honored at Uptime Institute Symposium in Santa Clara, California, on May 14-17, 2012, where they will share experiences and insights with industry peers through case-study presentations. Uptime Institute Symposium is the most influential all-stakeholder thought-leadership conference serving the global data center industry.
The 2012 GEIT Awards winners are:

• Audacious Idea: Facebook

• Facility Design Implementation: Verizon Wireless

• Facility Design Innovation: Bell Canada and Urbacon Architecture

• Facility Product Deployment: NTT Communications and Vigilent

• Facility Retrofit: National Snow and Ice Data Center and The RMH Group

• IT Product Deployment: XtremIO and Confidential Client

• IT Retrofit: HP Enterprise Group, India Research and Development Labs, Bangalore

• Modular Data Center Product Deployment: eBay and Dell

“This year over 100 organizations from 23 countries participated in the 2012 GEIT Awards from companies across the globe, presenting some of the most impressive applications our judges have seen to date,” said Matt Stansberry, program director of Uptime Institute Symposium and director of content and publications for Uptime Institute. “The Uptime Institute GEIT Awards program showcases the energy efficiency efforts of the most innovative data center operators and vendors, and contributes to the shared knowledge and best practices of our industry.”

Uptime Institute also announced the following 2012 GEIT Awards Finalists: Yahoo! (Facility Design Implementation); Sberbank Mega Datacenter and Mercury Engineering Russia (Facility Design Innovation); Texas Advanced Computing Center and Green Revolution Cooling (Facility Product Deployment); the University of Leicester and Keysource (Facility Retrofit); Cisco Systems and Confidential Client (IT Product Deployment); EMC Corporation and Symmes Maini & McKee Associates (IT Retrofit); and Ark Continuity, Red Engineering Design, and BladeRoom Group (Modular Data Center Product Deployment).

In addition, the following organizations received an Honorable Mention in the 2012 GEIT Awards competition: BendBroadband Vault Multi-Tenant Data Center (Facility Design Implementation); Digital Realty (Facility Design Innovation); IceCOLD and Confidential Client (Facility Product Deployment); California Technology Agency, Office of Technology Services, and California Data Center Design Group (Facility Retrofit); and the University of Colorado, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Data Centers Delivered, and Critical Facilities Technology (Modular Data Center Product Deployment).

The 2012 GEIT Awards are being sponsored by Sabey Data Centers.  Entries were thoroughly reviewed by an international committee of independent judges.

The theme of the 2012 Uptime Institute Symposium is Digital Infrastructure Convergence™, a call-to-action for IT and facilities management professionals to increase their level of strategic communication and cooperation.  Symposium will feature over 120 presentations and sessions across 4 days led by industry experts and analysts from Uptime Institute and 451 Research with participation from the most cutting-edge enterprises and organizations in the global data center marketplace. The GEIT Award honorees’ case-study presentations are scheduled throughoutSymposium. To see the complete Symposium program, click here.

For the first time, this year’s Symposium will feature a unique Modular Data Center Campus within the Santa Clara Convention Center. Symposium Delegates and Exposition-registered visitors will have an unprecedented opportunity to actually walk through the leading modular data center designs and make side-by-side comparisons, enabling a better understanding of their respective pros and cons for more effective decision-making.

To attend Uptime Institute Symposium 2012: Digital Infrastructure Convergence you may registerhere. Free Expo-only passes are also available for May 14 and 15 which include access to the Exhibition Hall and Modular Data Center Campus. On Monday, May 14, Expo-Only pass-holders may also attend select presentations, the GEIT Awards ceremony, and an evening networking event.  Registration is required for Expo-Only attendance and passes are available on a first come, first served basis by clicking here.

In attendance from the Vault marketing and sales team are:  Steve Rudinsky, Marketing Manager; Renata Thommen, Business Services Sales Support Manager; and Eric Petersen, Vault Data Center Services Sales Manager based out of Portland.

The attendance is quite high, and many people are interested in talking about the colocation data center services that The Vault provides, and the region in general.

A couple of IT managers from a state agency came by to discuss the recent announcement that Facebook was expanding their data center operations in Central Oregon, and that Apple recently purchased land to build their own data center there as well.  The advantages around a mild climate to cool their computer gear, the distance away from natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and tornadoes and the proximity to transportation choices were all mentioned as reasons to initiate discussions with The Vault to locate their IT equipment there.

Eric had an interesting discussion with some executives from a healthcare company who were interested in the anchor tenant at the Vault, St Charles Healthcare Systems.  The high levels of security and the massive reliability built into the Vault are key features of interest to all healthcare organizations.

Renata, at her first Vault trade show, noticed the vast number of potential relationships we could build with many companies, while helping to meet their IT needs. She also met with a systems integrator who has many clients who could use our colocation services and wants to schedule a Vault Tour the next time they are in the Central Oregon area.

Steve met with a different systems and storage infrastructure services provider who has many Portland area clients who have need of disaster recovery solutions away from the Portland region.  He wants to schedule a golf outing and Vault tour later in the springtime.

This show helped develop new contacts and build relationships whereby we get the word out about The Vault colocation services.

SSAE 16 is an internationally recognized third-party assurance audit for service providers awarded by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), which last year replaced SAS (Statement on Auditing Standards) No. 70 as the leading compliance initiative for service organizations.  The audit looked at the Vault’s processes, policies, procedures and operational activities and validated optimal performance standards regarding security, availability and operational integrity.

Leonard Weitman, BendBroadband’s Vice President of Technical Operations, takes this process very seriously.   “We recognize that by successfully passing the SSAE 16 audit our customers are assured of the effectiveness of the Vault’s data security and internal control systems.  Our superior reliability and security standards make the Vault a perfect colocation choice for industries such as Financial Services and Healthcare, which are highly regulated by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.”

About BendBroadband Vault 

BendBroadband Vault is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BendBroadband, a family-owned company providing communications solutions and technology infrastructure in Central Oregon for more than 50 years.  The company has earned a reputation within the industry as an innovator and technology leader thanks to facilities and resources that include more than a thousand miles of fiber and coax infrastructure along with metropolitan optical Ethernet, T-1/PRI and hosted PBX services serving the business community.  The company designed and built its 30,000-square-foot datacenter with energy efficiency and sustainability in mind.  The Vault is the only colocation datacenter on the West Coast to earn the combination of LEED Gold certification and Tier lll certification.

The new data center provides premium colocation services, as well as managed services and the company will also provide a variety of professional services to customers needing network, server and storage design, business continuity/disaster recovery, virtualization and cloud computing infrastructure.  St. Charles Health System is an anchor tenant in the new facility. BendBroadband Vault has been through its initial annual SSAE 16 Type II-audit and is an HIPAA-compliant facility.

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Vault Staff and Public at the Ribbon Cutting in June

It was quite a year for the BendBroadband Vault.  The facility was completed in late winter and officially opened its doors on April 1^st amid a flurry of news coverage from IT and data center publications from around the world. Clients soon began moving in, among them St. Charles Medical Facility from our hometown of Bend.

From the get-go, the Vault was built to be an environmentally sustainable and green facility. In May, the organization furthered the cause by agreeing to purchase enough carbon offsets over the next four years to become a “carbon neutral” facility. This announcement added to the already existing green elements, including the Kyoto Cooling, photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, low-impact landscaping and Blue Sky renewable energy, among other items.

In June, BendBroadband Vault received word that it had been awarded the Uptime Institute’s Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility. The announcement signified that the Vault met the criteria set forth by the original design and had adhered to it throughout the construction process.  This also marked the second certification for the Vault by the Uptime Institute, with the Tier III Design Certification being awarded in late March.

Throughout the year, the Vault proved it could live up to its claims for extreme energy efficiency, with the colocation facility operating at a Power Use Efficiency (PUE) of less than 1.2, a huge step below the 2.0 average of most data centers. Add that to an estimated 600kW lower energy consumption when compared to standard data centers and the Vault is proving that green tech is the wave of the future.

Fast forward to the fall and the Vault was able to add a few more awards to its trophy case. On October 13^th, the Vault was presented with an Innovation Award by the Environmental Center of Bend as part of the 2011 Sustainability Awards.  Later in the month, the Vault was notified it had officially achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold status under the LEED 2009 Building Design and Construction (LEED BD+C) rating system. This was a monumental achievement and one that we had been working toward since the initial concept stage of the facility. Achieving LEED Gold status put the Vault in the upper echelon of data centers and one of only five data centers in the world to attain this level.

The past year has definitely been a whirlwind, but one filled with proud accomplishments and great achievements. Several of the notable names behind the controls at the Vault agreed, and decided to share some of their proudest moments of the year below:

It’s been a very exciting year. I moved here in February from Dubai to manage the Vault. It’s so great to see the environment being used constructively as it is at the Vault through our Kyoto units. We achieved the much-coveted LEED Gold certification to go along with our Uptime Institute certifications – a very good year for achievements! – Steven Hall, Data Center Director

We opened on time, began moving customers in the next day, sustained uninterrupted service for the entire year, earned our Tier-III Facility certification, achieved LEED-Gold status, and have implemented processes and procedures that put us in position for a strong SSAE-16 Audit result. – Leonard Weitman, Vice President of Technical Operations

From all of us at the Vault, have a safe and happy holidays! See you next year.

Leonard Weitman, VP of Technical Operations in the Data Hall

Most notably, news anchor Adam Aaro highlighted the Vault’s Kyoto Cooling system and talked with Vice President of Technical Operations Leonard Weitman about the benefits of the energy efficient system. Aaro also pointed out that the facility is now LEED Gold certified by the United States Green Building Council.  Additionally, KTVZ highlighted the Vault’s 624 solar panels as well as the pervious pavement and the company’s usage of renewable energy through Pacific Power’s Blue Sky program.

Though we are not able to share the video directly here, users can view the video in its entirety on KTVZ.com’s web site by clicking on the image below.